Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Today

This morning I taught my first summer camp session. I have two different kinds. The school offers a full day summer camp that covers everything offered by the school, and hour of and hour of that and so on. So I am teaching an hour and half on tuesday mornings for that. Then in July & Auguts I do a full week long animation camp for three hours each morning. This morning I had nine kids and it was a fairly boisterous crowd, but we got a lot done and they had fun.

Last night we got our new 130 gallon aquarium..... It's a sickness I swear!!

Reevaluate

Today I am sitting down to go over my entire fitness regime and reassess and evaluate, and set some new goals.

I'm really happy with the way things have been going so far, and I've reached quite a few of my original goals. So it's time to set some new ones, and have a look at how I'm going to go about achieving them.

First off, a little self pat on the back for the goals I've achieved so far.

1) I've managed to make going to the gym a daily habbit and get there five times a week most weeks. (That may not sound like much, but it's a fairly big deal to me because it's very easy to fall off and miss days. I missed several weeks while we were rehearsing Cabaret and it took two full weeks to get back into the routine and I'm still catching up to where I left off physically)

2) I am the size and weight I think I should be!!!!

3) I am running and managing to go the entire 20 minutes on the treadmill without feeling like I might fall down and die afterwards.

4) My stomach has gone from one big roll to three with slight dents down the center.

5) My bloodpreasure is textbook perfect. Getting off the cycloporin will help keep it that way also because that is what was driving it up to begin with.

6) My endurance is 100% better and I have more energy everyday.

7) I am doing more sets with heavier weights.

So all in all the program I'm following is working well for me. If i want even better results I'm going to have to make the adjustments to my diet. So my next and biggest goal will be to eat properly!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, with my left shoulder being all gymped like it is I know I can't build a big upperbody, it's just not going to happen because I will look completely lopsided... so I know the best bet for me is to burn fat with a good diet and define what's already there. Stay lean and mean hahahaha. I am going to set up a meal plan of five small meals a day working with a calory deficit for three days then maintenance for one, and a cheat day every two weeks, then maintain that! That is my new goal, combined with what I'm already doing. I think if I can maintain that, by the end of two months I should be seeing my abs.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Unexpected Long Weekend

We took Friday off, because we had to head to Fredericton to meet up with a guy from Halifax and trade him one of our Pacific Blue Tangs (Like Dorry in Nemo)for some coral frags. Before that happened however, I was checking out an add on the Reefers forum about a guy getting out of the hobby and selling all his stuff, so we took an impromptu jaunt up to Sussex on Thursday night to see what he had. We returned home with some really big and beautiful corals at real bargains.

We headed up to Fredericton to meet up with Kirk for 1 O'clock. We were waiting in the parking lot of this little mall and it all looked a lot like a drug deal because we weren't the only one getting frags from him. He arrives and I trade him my big baggy with the fish in it for a bunch of little tupperware containers of coral frags. Then a couple other guys show up with cash in hand for their containers, like I say it looked like a drug deal or something. We headed home and popped the new aquitistions into the tank and I toddled off to teach my class. We were expecting the Hagen Order to arrive at Village Pets with our new 130 gallon tank in it, but it hasn't arrived yet, so when I got home just after 7 Darrell decides we need to go back up to Sussex. We pretty much cleaned out the big corals and we got a filter for our new tank when it comes, plus a Reverse Osmosis unit for purifying our tap water (our water's pretty good anyway because we're on a nice deep well, but the price of the unit was too good to pass up). He still has some stuff up there that we want, but some of it has to wait until he's taken the rest of the stuff out of his tank so we won't be rushing back up to Sussex right away. At least I don't think so....but it could happen.... we are officially addicted!!

Unfortunately we bungled a little bit by putting all those big corals in all at once, and the stress caused one or two of them to let off some toxins in the water, that did in our little flame angel fish. He may have been alright if we had just left him to recover but we paniced and moved him over to the quarantine tank right away, and I think the extra stress was just too much for him. The toxins also effected our yellow tang and he was all dopey and lethargic, so a crab took advantage of it in the middle of the night and nipped a chunk of his dorsal fin. We moved him over to the quarantine tank and he is doing much better now. That was Saturday morning and in the process of all that we completely took everything out of the tank and rearranged all the rock work and the corals and this is what we came up with:

Tank shot June 23 2007

Tank shot June 23 2007

The rest of Saturday was spent fussing around with the tank and the fish and then we watched Finding Nemo on Disney.

Sunday we attended a get together at Rogers for volunteer apreciation. I haven't actually volunteered there in a while, but it was nice to see everyone. Then we were off to Brian and Helen's for a BBQ. Chad & Nancey, and Bertis were also there, and we brought along our blender, some frozen juice, a couple bags of ice, and vodka to make vodka Slushies. It was a lot of fun, but we all called it an early night. When we got home we watched a beautiful feature on the Nature of Things all about coral reefs and shipwrecks.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Gym packed

Holy crap the gym was busy today. I usually go at 2 to avoid the rush, but lately the bikini rush has been in full swing so there is no real slow time. Lots and lots of ladies desperately pounding the treadmill and the eliptical trainer so they can rock that sexy new two piece on the beach. Not that any of them will probably take the baggy t-shirt off that they have covering it, but as long as they're looking in the mirror congratulating themselves for their sucesses and not critisizing the places they still need to work on ... more power to them. Then it's off for 15 - 20 carcenogenic minutes fake and baking on the melanoma machine to get that nice base skin damage that everyone is looking for. I have to have a slight rant here because ... for christ's sake people everybody knows about skin cancer and how to prevent it. It's not a state secret. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "HEALTHY" TAN!!!!! Sun damage is cumulative (that means it builds up over time) so every little burn in the past and all those highschool summers spent laying out in the sun covered in baby oil all count toward the future. And take it from a two time cancer survivor... life may be the longest thing any of us does, but it's too damn short to suffer treatment for a disease that you can prevent.

Maybe when Justin Timberlake's balls finally drop and he pays someone to bring sexy back he could encourage hollywood to make pale sexy again. The ancient Greeks had the right idea.

...... All bow and worship the diva that is Rose McGowan... She rocks the pale!!



*End rant*

It will be nice when the gym slows down again in the next couple weeks and I'm sure all those ladies will return in January to try out their New Years Resolutions. Now if I could stick to my resulution to get my diet in order. I know all the theory it's the practical I'm falling down on, and I can run a mile and half every day and work out a specific muscle group each day and do 200 crunches... but if I don't start eating breakfast and bringing a lunch my body is going to go into starvation mode and that belly fat aint going nowhere!!

Wednesday

I am exhausted today, just physically and emotionally drained. I've had the strangest week imaginable and now I just need to sit down and process.

I will be teaching summer camps for animation coming up in July and August. It will be three hours each morning for five days at a time, and sounds like we are going to have a lot of fun. Plus the school runs a day long summer camp that has aspects of all the different things offered at the school, from music to painting, and I've been asked to do an hour and half of animation once a week with those kids. So it's going to be a very busy summer.

Friday I'm off to Fredericton to trade my blue pacific Tang for some corals with a guy from Halifax. We got two regal tangs not realizing that there was a compatibility issue with them, so we are trading the one. Apparently Blue Regal Tangs...like Dorry in Nemo.... can only be kept as individuals or in groups of three or four, and you can't have a group that size in the small tank we have. 77gallons doesn't sound like a small tank, but relatively speaking.... it is. Apparently if you have a group of them they will sort of school, but if it's only two they will just pick on one another until one eventually dies.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

The room of souls

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are a warm hearted and open minded person. It's easy for you to forgive and forget.

You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds.

You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you.

Your near future is calm, relaxing, and pretty much what you want. And it's something you've been anticipating for a while now.

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Surreal kind of Day

Okay the past 24 hours can only be called extraordinary... I couldn't make this stuff up. She did reply, and she is who I thought she was... she had to be, she looks so much like one of my aunts when she was younger it's spooky. As for anything else who knows really. I basically intruded on her life and she's probably feeling a little shellshocked. I told her a bit about me, and a bit about my aunt, and pointed her in the direction of some family photos in case she was curious and left it up to her. If she wants to know more I'll happily tell her anything I know, but now I step back and respect her privacy.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Weird Weekend

We had a really good weekend weatherwise and took the oportunity to catch up on some long overdue yard work. It was only the second time this year we've cut the grass, so you can probably imagine what that looked like. Darrell also got a really good start on cleaning up the huge mess I made in the basement building that aquarium stand. I will be building another one in the very near future because we have a larger tank on order that should be arriving on Thursday...... I know, we're crazy but what the hell. We're going to deal with the ich problem by putting all the fish and only the fish in the larger 130 gallon tank for a month with no sand or gravel for the parasite to reporduce in. With no fish in the main tank any parasites in it, will die with no hosts and, since crabs and shrimp can't be hosts to it, they will stay in the main tank while the others decompress and get healthier. Then when everything is clear again the fishies will move back to their home in the 77 gallon tank and we will slowly (Slowly being the key word that I will have to continually say over and over again to Darrell because once he gets going it's hard to pull him back) put together the components for the larger tank and get it all up and running in the downstairs rec room. Then everything from the main tank will move there and a couple new fish will be added as well as a better lighting system and some funky corals. The 77 gallon tank that is upstairs right now will stay exactly where it is and will become the home to a snowflake eel and possibly a triggerfish and a puffer fish depending on compatability.
Aside from all the fish stuff, it was a pretty laid back weekend at home. I was craving tacos for a couple days, so I popped out and got the stuff. I invited some people over but they were all busy so Darrell and I pigged out and had a lot left over for another taco fest on Sunday.... there's still some stuff left for when we get home.
Called my Dad for Father's day, and got some weird news... turns out my aunt and uncle are getting a divorce... that totally blows my mind because they're the last people on earth I would've figured would separate... they had such a rocky beginning and overcame all those problems way way back that I figured there was probably nothing that could tear them apart now after 39 years together, but what do I know, I live on the other side of the country and only seem to manage to get home once every five years. Then another odd thing happened. I was talking to my grandmother and asked her about a cousin of mine (my aunt gave her up for adoption when she was born for a lot of complicated reasons that I was too young to understand and not willing to ask her about now because it's none of my business)and she told me as much as knew about her. My aunt went through the process of trying to find her a few years ago and was given the basic information (her name and where she was adopted out too, but not much more came of it)... so anyway I typed the name into facebook, and a girl came up who seems to match everything I know and looks exactly like a younger version of another of my aunts... it was spooky. I couldn't help sending her a message but I'll be surprised if I hear back from her... I mean would you respond if some crazy stranger sent you an e-mail that said... Just wondering, are you adopted, because I think I'm your cousin?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Difficulty signing in

For the past couple days blogger has been acting a little whonky and I haven't been able to sign in, but that seems to better now.

The weekend was quiet. The weather was awsome and we stuck close to home. Did a few chores, fussed around with aquarium stuff, finally got some tangle foot on my fruit trees to keep the ants off.. that kind of thing.

The dogs have both already brushed up against the tangle foot so they will be needing a bath this weekend to get the stuff out of their fur. No point doing it yet, because it takes a few days to wear it down enough to wash it out. The stuff is nearly invulnerable and I'mm be glad when the trees are big enough that I can start putting it out of dog range.

I think post show despression may ave set in because I'm feeling generally bored with my life. It took a lot longer to set in this time, probably because the show was so draining both physically and emotionally, I needed to recouperate before I had enough energy to get depressed....hahaha.

We are still dealing with ich in the tank, and Darrell is still obsessed with the tank in general. I think it's the frustrated scuba diver in him that's causing the obsession. He hasn't been diving since we moved here 8 years ago and he used to spend almost as much time in the water as he did out of it. At any rate the problem with the ich and the fact that we can't afford to upgrade to a larger tank at the moment, coupled with the new problem that there are half a dozen pistol shrimp hiding out in a piece of live rock that we need to get rid of, are dirving him to the brink. He is not a patient person and the marine aquarium hobby requires a lot of patients. I think an intervention is in the not to distant future.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Got a little done

Just incase any of you are suffering from a little Cabaret withdrawl. I managed to do a little editing today. It still needs to be tidied up and the audio adjusted a bit, but here's something:

Willkommen

I don't have enough room on this editor to do the entire show and Darrell's system still has a big project on it that needs to come off before I can get it all finished, but at least I've got it started.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

For the first time in 8 Years.

I was off work yesterday and up in Moncton for my quarterly appointment with my transplant Doctor. It is now 8 years since the BMT and he decided to take me off cyclosporin (one of my antirejections drugs.) This is the first time I've ever been off it since the day my transplant marrow took. It is a nasty drug that has done nasty things to my gums and raises my bloodpreasure, not to mention it is extremely expensive, so I am happy to put it in my past. I will have to moniter myself very closely and make sure the Graft vs Host disease doesn't come flairing back and my skin doesn't tighten up and get all thick again, but I'm optimistic that things will be fine. In fact I think this may be the year I leave all the drugs in the past (Well here's hoping).

I also stopped into Noble Aquariums, while in Moncton, and picked up my very first coral. There are actually two corals on the rock I got, one is a bright red mushroom coral, and the other is hard to describe... it looks like shimmery grass. The base is purple but the tendrils that come off it are sort of gold tipped and flicker in the light. It closed up on the drive home and I haven't seen it completely open yet because I had to leave for work before the daylights came on, but Darrell said it looks awsome.. so I can't wait to get home and have a look. I also got another feather duster and a brittle star. Terry (the owner) also took the two chocolatechip sea stars off my hands that we bought without researching first. He will, no doubt, find them very good homes.

Monday, June 04, 2007

The Weekend

It was a really nice weekend weatherwise. Darrell was working for the IWK all weekend so I basically had the house to myself. I took advantage of the sun to cut the grass, do alilttle gardening, and hang the laundry out to dry on Saturday. Around 7 I headed over to Brian and Helen's for a BBQ with Chad & Nancy, and Bertis & Colin.We had some burgers & smokies, a few drinks and played a hilarious game of beyond Balderdash... it was more than worth the price of admission... I never laughed so hard.... I swear I pee'd a little a couple times.

Sunday was a lazy lay around in the sun day. Coffee on the front step, water on the back deck. I spent some time just sitting and watching the aquarium... so relaxing.

Today I made some strides forward with my pilot. I also went up to St joe's to get my annual BMT blood work done. They took 11 vials of blood, I'm surprised there's any left. It felt like an audition for Dracula.

There was an ich outbreak a in the tank a while back and both Pacific Blue Tangs had to be moved to the quarantine tanks. They were just covered in the parasite..poor things. We were scraed they weren't going to recover but after a few days they are now looking healthy again. They will be staying in the quaratine tank for a little while until they've had a chance to really recover.