Spring has Started.

According to the calendar it's spring. According to the snow this morning... not so much.

Last night I got the drawer rails for the front panel glued together as well as the back and sides of the base. That clean uncluttered little room with the freezer and the new shelves stayed clean and uncluttered for about ten seconds after I got home, and now the floor if full of glued pieces of wood all clamped tightly together.

We are challenging our property tax assessment this year, because it has gone up 12 percent two years in a row, and there are almost no services down our road to warrant such an increase. We have to cross the highway to get our mail from the little community box at the far end of the road, there is no cable, no highspeed internet, the garbage is only picked up once every two weeks, there's no community centers, I even had to sign a permission slip for the school bus to turn aorund in our driveway or they wouldn't pick up Marshall's (He's the first house on our road)kids for school. They're young kids and they would have had to cross the three lane anrterial highway to catch the bus. There's no way we're letting them raise our property tax by 12% without a fight.

The assessor is coming to the house tomorrow morning, so I will have to spent this evening cleaning up a bit. I been so busy building I haven't been keeping up with the cleaning so the kitchen looks like it hemoraged dishes and pots, the rest of the upstairs has little dog hair bunnies in the corners, and you don't want to know about the bathroom. That's just the main floor... the basement is a total write off at the moment, everything is covered in sawdust, wood shavings, and actual pieces of wood.

Another Busy Weekend

Got home Friday and set up the new Karaoke Machine, but the laser wasn't working and it wouldn't read the disks. I talked to the owner of the Karaoke Closet on Saturday morning and he said "no problem send it back and we'll send a new one". He was really good about it. It's disapointing, but nobody't fault, and it just adds to the list of things I have to look forward to.

We spent Saturday cutting and cutting and cutting. Darrell started building the shelves in the little freezer room. At first I thought this was going to be annoying and he would be getting in my way while I tried to work on the stand, but for the most part it was fine. Sometime around 4:30 or 5 the power went out, so we went to the Dolan Road Irving for a quick bite. Then at 7 the power came back on and we got cleaned up and headed over to Brian & Helen's, for a few drinks and round of Taboo with them, Bertis and his friend Colin. It was Bertis, Brian and I against Colin, Helen and Darrell.... we decimated them. A good startegy with games like Taboo is to split up the couples onto separate teams... there's less shared knowledge that way.

Sunday was back to work on the stand. We got all the plywood cut that needed to be, and then all the extra plywood to replace it, because I F&%^ked up a measurement. We also got a couple good reminders why we don't work with the big tools when we're alone in the house. I was using the mitre saw to put a 45 on one of bottom moldings and something must've wiggled or twisted or god knows what, but the wood smacked me a good one in the knuckle, and I now have a nasty little bruise on my left pinky finger. Then just to reinforce the point, Darrell was helping me take a half inch strip off a large piece of plywood and at the end of the cut, the scrap piece flew back out the saw like it had been shot from a cannon. It went right down the hallway and put a little chip in the drywall. (could've put an eye out.)

Darrell finished the shelves on Sunday and I have just about every cut that needs to be made made. There are a few more, but I have lots of stuff to do that can fill up the week while Darrell and Mike are in Portsmouth, and now that the shelves are finished and all that crap is up off the floor I have more room to do it.

Nice Shelves, Ja?



More pieces of the stand:


The base pieces. The molding on the far side is the one that twisted and wacked me in the knuckle, the end was also screwed because of it. Luckily I had long cut off ends for the long molding and was able to cut a new 45 piece to be glued onto the end of the screwed one. (that will be one of tonight's chores)




Door Drawers and more. Those are just the boxes for the drawers, the fronts are laying on the bed beside them, but you can't realy see them that well. If you look on the other side of the bed on the floor...that giant white box contains the aquarium that will be going on the stand when it's finally finished.



As you can see the entire basement is completely overrun with the project



And here is my dado setup.




More pics when there's more done.

I have a fairly easy schedule this week as far as Cabaret goes, in fact I have nothing until Thursday, so I should get a lot done on the stand.

The past two weeks it's been nearly impossible to get to the gym because Mike was away at the Winter Games and Darrell was constantly out shooting. Now that they are both out of town, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get in this week either. Hopefully I can find some time each day to lock the door and wander down the road... although, cutting and sawing, and sanding and gluing, and lifting all those boards over and over if quite a Workout in and of itself... So if I don't make it there, I probably won't suffer too badly because of it.

Package Arrived!!!

Yay! My shiny new karaoke machine just arrived a minute ago from Ontario.....sooo excited to try it out tonight!!! I guess I could always plug it into our system and serenade the dentist's office for a while, but they may not appreciate it.

I don't know where Lisa or anyone else get's their disks etc from, but I found a great place in Ontario called Karaoke Closet
http://karaokecloset.com/home.php
They have equipment and a huge selection of disks at good prices as well as free shipping.

Friday

Today is Friday, but I think I'll skip the feast this time.

Yesterday after work Mike was kind enough to take me over to Kent in his truck so I could get my oak plywood, for the bottom and back of the stand. Since I had him there I got a bunch of 2x4s as well. We want to build some shelves in the little room downstairs where the freezer is. ("in the little room downstairs" how Elton John is that???)

I got a fair chunk done on the stand last night. I dado'd out all the cuts for the bottom molding. It was a big job and took a awhile, since the plate on our table saw doesn't have a very large opening so I can only get 3 of the dado blades on for a 3/8 s cut. Now there are little ridges all over the face of the boards where multiple cuts were made to clear a large piece....lots of sanding. I also got the edges routered on the board before calling it a night.

This weekend we were thinking of going up to Moncton for the home show, but Darrell & Mike are going to be in Portsmouth all next week shooting so I have to try and get all my heavy cutting etc done on my stand... anything that will require one of the big tools needs to be done this weekend so I can spend the week gluing and sanding etc. We never use the big tools when we're alone at home, so short of calling someone up to come hang out while I work, the only solution is to get all the big stuff done this weekend and spend next week on little things. I want to get as much of this thing done this week as I can because so far my rehearsal shedule for Cabaret is very very very light... I only have 4 rehearsals for the rest of this month (so far.. that could change). Next month is another story all together, and time will quickly start becoming a rare comodity.

Moncton

Yesterday's journey to Moncton was good. The weather was nice for the drive there and back. My appointment was for 10:45 so I left around 8:45 to give me lots of time. The Hospital parking lot was full and there was a line of stupid people in their cars willing to wait instead of just taking a spot on the street (duh). I pulled around a block up and found 2 hour free residential parking. I didn't actually see my doctor, I saw a different transplant doctor who was filling in for him this time around. She lowered the dose on one of my meds, which is cool because it cuts the cost in half (pretty big deal simce I'm having to pay for the stuff myself now).

I got back to the office around 2 and started transcribing some interview footage. We were a little late getting home, and had whopper wednesday dinner. (argh fattening)

I threw on my grungy glue and paint encrusted clothing and headed downstairs for another edition of cabinetry 101. I got a lot done last night too which is good considering I just wasn't into it on Tuesday. Darrell came down to help me manage the long boards on the joiner and planer, and we got the boards for the base done as well as all theboards for the front panel. Then I started cutting everything to correct size and got some dadoing done, and basically packed it up by 10. I have some pieces to sand tonight before I start gluing them together. I find it easier (especially with intersecting grain patterns) to do most of the sanding first then just fine tune it after the piece is glued.

Here's a few pics from the project so far:

My little gluing station. These are goingto be the sides of the cabinet



The doors. Aside from polyurithane these babies are done... aren't they beautiful?



Last night: Planing the base boards. I had to glue a 1x4 to a 2x4 to get the thickness I needed.



Darrell takes exact measurements with a calipur:




I took a couple shots of the finished drawers, but they are out of focus. More photos to come when there's something new to photograph.

Tuesday

There's really not much to say today. We left work around 4 and made some spaghetti when we got home. I went downstairs and finished gluing the last joint on the second side panel, as well as routering the edge of the upper molding peice for the aquarium stand. I had another look at what I have so far for music from Cabaret, and then watched a little TV before heading off to bed. I didn't get much sleep on Sunday night and I didn't manage to catch up at all last night either, so I'm kind of tired today. I'll have to get to bed earlier tonight because I'm off to Moncton tomorrow morning for my Doctor's appointment.... Hope the weather stays nice.

Mike is finally back from Whitehorse (he was up shooting the winter games) so the office is starting to get back to normal. I might actually be able to take the time to get to the gym today...I've missed about a week and a half so it'll be a lot like starting over.

Oh yeah... there is a highlight to yesterday... I ordered a Karaoke machine and some disks for the house.....yooohooo. Can't wait until that gets here.

Sawdust everywhere

It seems every spare moment I have these days I am covered in sawdust and wood shavings. Things are really coming along with the aquarium stand... so far I've spent $700 on Oak boards, and still have two pieces of plywood to get at 75 bucks a sheet. I'm not too concerned about the cost because at the end of it we will have a one of a kind piece of solid oak furniture that will be beautiful.

Darrell had to work on Saturday so I could only do small things with the stand, we have a standing agreement around our place that no one uses the big power tools if we're the only person home. I use little power hand tools like the router etc when he's not around, but won't touch things like the table saw, planer, ot joiner if I'm alone... that would just be stupid. You can take every safety precaution going but even then there are factors that can't be anticipated. If you hit a knothole just the right way, any one of those tools can project it right back at you with enough force to dent concrete walls. We don't stand over one another and supervise what the other's doing, but we do pop down and check things out ever now and then to make sure everything is going okay in the shop. Out little woodshop is too small for both of us to work in so I've been doing most of the work on the stand and Darrell has come down to help me with joining, planing, & cutting the long boards as well as gluing and stuff... but I've been working on the final cuts and fussy details.

While Darrell was working Saturday I routered the edges of the Doors and Drawer fronts, then sanded them and the drawers. That took a few hours and my shoulders got a good workout. Once Darrell got home we biscuit jointed the boards for the side panels. I could have done that without him home, but we just bought the biscuit cutter and it hadn't been used yet, so I wanted to wait until he got home so we could try out our new toy together.

Sunday was our first musical rehearsal for Cabaret. We went over Wilkommen & Tomorrow Belongs to Me - Both versions. I have a great solo in the beginning of Tomorrow Belongs to Me (the waiters quartet version), it's a fairly high tenor part but the highest note is only a b-flat so I have no problems with it. With all the harmony it sounds really good, and that was just after our initial rehearsal of it.... can't wait to hear it after we've done it a gazillion times over the course of the rehearsal schedule.

After rehearsal it was back home, and you guessed it, back to the basement woodshop. I got the last of the joins for the side panel glued and clamped, and also glued up the second side panel. I joined the edges of the pieces for the top so they can be biscuited and glued today after work, and Darrell helped me join, plane, & cut the pine 2x4's that will be supports for the inside of the base (they are completely hidden so buying oak for that part of it made so sense at all.). I did the final cuts and assembled them before calling it a night and retiring to the couch for Must see Sunday night TV. Turned out most of my shows were repeats with the exception of the Amazing Race.. My distaste for Rob & Amber is no longer a problem because last night they got the boot.....yay.

So Fun Last Night!

Last night's first read through for Cabaret was hilarious. A lot of it was from speaking the songs instead of singing them, but there were also some very funny moments in the dialog. It's a cast and crew of really fun people so I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and get to it. I am playing waiter/Cabaret boy Bobby, and he's going to be a scream to play. He even has lines... who would've thought? Darrell said he was glad I didn't get the part of Emcee because the part was to "GAY", wait until he gets a load of Bobby.

I got a call last night that I have an appointment with my Doctor at his Moncton Clinic next week, I'm not going to Halifax anymore because the pharmacy there cut me off, so I had to go in and get blood work done this morning. I hate going for blood work, not that I'm afraid of needles or anything like that, I basically got over all that by the time I was ten. I just hate going in because it's such a long process. You have to stand in line and register at the front desk now, then stand in line and register at the blood lab and get your number, then sit in a waiting room full of people for an hour, then when your number is finally called you get moved to another waiting area where you sit waiting for the next available chair before finally getting your blood taken. They're generally pretty good at St. Joe's, but the one I had taking my blood this morning must've been having an off day because she wasn't holding the thing steady so everytime she changed viles I got an extra jab when she took it off and then again when she put the new one on... it was unpleasant. For me the worst part is the waiting room... I hate sitting there waiting for them to call my number, it's almost like winning the lottery when they finally do... some prize! But there's inevitably always that person who chooses to sit directly across from me and start telling me everything that's wrong with them. I must have one of those faces or something, because they zero in on me like seagulls to a piece of bread. I mean come on... when I ask an aquaintence how they're doing it's just to be polite... I don't actually want them to start telling me... so imagine how I must feel when a complete stranger perches across from me and launches into their medical history. There's always that one woman who goes on and on about all the tests she's had because the doctors just don't know what's wrong with her, and she wears it like a badge, which indicates to me that the doctors can't find anything wrong with her becuase there isn't anything wrong with her aside from a chronic case of hypochondria. Of course you have to just be polite and knod and smile and give that empathetic look and a reassuring word or two that they'll figure it out...OMG!!! I so hate going to the blood lab!!!!

Sadly I've had to go once a month for the past 9 years and that won't be changing in the near future.

First Read Tonight

Tonight is the first read through for Cabaret, it should be fun. I doubt I actually have anything at all to do, since I'm pretty sure the chorus boys/waiters probably don't have anything to say, but it's still exciting to get going and see what's in store.

Another trip to Home Depot after work yesterday, this time with my materials lists. I bit the bullet and got all the wood I need with the exception of one oak 2x4 which I will have to get at Kent, and two sheets of oak plywood (For the back and bottom)which we can't get until we find someone with a truck to pick it up. It was a very expensive trip to Home Depot, but we now have nearly all the materials we need.

All the 1x4x8s we looked at were bowed or warped, but they had some really nice 1x8x8s so we got those and ripped them on the table saw when we got home. It sounds kind of stupid to rip a board in half only to have to glue it together again when you laminate the panels, but it has to be under 6 inches to go through the joiner, and it has to go through the joiner so you know you're staring with a flat side... you absolutely can't trust the lumber you buy to be square or level even if you spend through the ass to buy dressed lumber. We got the boards for the top, sides, and door panels joined & planed last night, then I glued the door panels together and called it a night. Since the reading is tonight there will be no more wood working until Thursday.

Chipping away.

I stopped off at Home Depot to pick up a 1x6 to make new panels for the doors, but I didn't bring my materials list (Always bring your materials list) so the piece I got was too short, and I already put it through the joiner and planer, so I had to go to Kent to get another piece to make up for the shortage (no big deal, just time consuming and a stupid, frustrating mistake.)
By the time I got back home and unloaded my wood etc, it was five minute to Heroes so I got nothing else done on the stand.
Heroes was so good last night I almost couldn't contain myself. The story lines are finally starting to converge and surprises are popping up all over. Loving It!!!
How I Met Your Mother was a repeat.

Expensive Weekend

We had a very busy and expensive weekend. I finally got the aquarium stand designed and plans layed out to build it, so we started this weekend. We're doing it out of solid oak so it is quite expensive. So far I've done the rails and styles for the doors, the drawers and am doing the drawer fronts tonight. I have the boards to laminate together for the top and have to pick up a 1x6x4 to do the door panels. I did them this weekend but F&^%ked them up (Expensive mistake). I glued them togther and then tried to plane them down to thickness, which is the wrong order.... sadly I knew this, it's just been so long since I did an actual woodworking project I forgot... won't happen again. I build a model of the stand in 3d studio so I could get all the joints and measures all worked out before ever buying a piece of wood. Then I broke the model apart and rendered out each area, put my measurement on the images in Photoshop and printed off perfect diagrams of exactly what needs to be done. Sure beats the hell out of sitting at a drafting table. It's quite possibly a little more complicated, but in 3d studio I can work at exact scale and not do any conversion math, and since I use it everyday it's kind of like writting to me.

Here's a render of what the finshed project will look like:



I'll post a photo of the finished product in however long it takes to actually build it.... so now the pressures on to make sure I do it right, because I've shown you what it will look like, so it better turn out that way...hahahaha.

The funny part is the stand is going to cost about 3 times what Darrell's uncle paid for the actual aquarium... but what the hell it will be a custom made solid oak piece of furniture, so it won't cost anything near what it would cost to buy it already finished.

Friday March 02. 2007

Appetizer
What does the color pink make you think of?
Breast Cancer... because of the pink ribbon canpaign and the constant advertising when I see pink that's the first thing I think of.

Soup
Name something you thought you had lost, but later found.
I had a floppy disk with a journal I kept in the Hospital during my Bone Marrow transplant, and thought it had been lost or accidentally thrown out but I came across it in a box a month or two after we moved.

Salad
In 3 words, describe this past week.
Typical, Kinda Boring.

Main Course
What are you obsessed with?
At the moment I'm obsessed with a few things.
1) My daily workout.
2) Trying to alter my diet
3) Melissa Ethridge Music - Lately she's just been rubbing me the right way, so I need my daily fix of "Come to My Window", "Angels Will Fall", "Bring Me Some Water", "Like the Way I do", "I Wanna Come Over", & "Inconvenient Truth" (Not all at once but spaced out with other music filling in the gap throughout the day)

Sidebar: Darrell's new musical obsession is: Dixie Chick - "Not ready to Make Nice" & "Goodbye Earl", Melissa Ethridge - "Inconvenient Truth", & Andrea Bocelli - "Because we Believe"... He has these on the same CD along with a few Blue grass tunes from Shanklin Road, some Train, and a couple other songs... an odder mix of musical genres you have never heard before. But hey I must be having an effect on him... Andrea Bocelli is on the list

Dessert
What kind of perfume or cologne do you like to wear?
I don't normally wear cologne or perfume. Most places now are scent free because it makes other people (myself occassionally) sneeze. I do have a bottle of Drakkar Noir in the medicine Cabinet that I put on every now and then.

Finally Over!!!

Why is the shortest month of the year sooooo bloody long? It felt like an eternity but February is finally over!!! Of course winter tends to try and stick around until April, so the only thing over is February, but hey it's a start.

Today is our dog Tiffy's 9th Birthday. She's getting to be a middle aged girl who can't wait until spring, because she's become pretty fat and lazy over the winter. Well fat and lazy are the corner stones of her personality to begin with, it just becomes more accentuated in the winter. I weighed her last week and she was close to 90 pounds which is too fat for a dog her size, so she will be getting many regular trips to the lake this spring and summer and less people food. I may even start running in the real world so she and Elton will get to go with me. Technically Tiffy is Darrell's dog and Elton is mine, but they don't know the difference. He got her a couple weeks before we met and started our relationship, so May will mark 9 years since we first got together and August will mark 9 years since we moved to New Brunswick together. Where did all the the go?

Happy Birthday Tiffy.

Good weekend.

The week ended really badly for me, but I was over it by Saturday evening. Darrell was thrilled I didn't get the part, and had been secretly hoping I wouldn't the entire time I prepared for it.. something about it being too gay (whatever that means) or something equally stupid and insecure. I'll file it away for now and throw it in his face when we're arguing about something else in the future.

It was a pretty quiet and uneventful weekend full of home improvement and property flipping shows on TLC and HGTV. Darrell built a platform on the stairs so he could get up and have alook at the motor for our Heat Recovery Unit. When we bought the place we were told it was dying and would need to be replaced, but it looks more like the unit only needs a good cleaning, so that will be next weekends project. We also put down a tarp and repotted some plants (Anyone whose been over knows that isn't a small job).

I talked to Nan (that's what I call my grandmother) and she's doing really well. They removed her staples and she is walking a lot more now... still taking it easy though. Aparently half the family in Williams Lake is stapled up for one reason or another. My aunt had a hystorectomy and my cousin had to have some scar tissue or growths removed from a previous surgery. My cousin has a weird skin skin that makes her break out in a rash and infection if she wears metal other than gold so a few days after her operation she had to go back in and have the staples taken out and stiches put in because they started festering up and getting infected.

Sunday night we were one of the ten houses in North America that wasn't watching the Oscars, we could both care less about awards shows. You didn't have to watch to know that Jennifer Hudson won best supporting actress for her role in Dream Girls... not bad for an American Idol reject. Especially considering the best Kelly Clarkson can seem to do is a guest appearance on Reba. Whose out of their depth now Simon?

There was a new episode of Heroes on, which is odd since it's usually on on Mondays. I hope they aren't going to start changing the day like they have a tendency to do with new shows. That drives me right around the bend... you just get used to a viewing schedule and then for no apparent reason what so ever they take your favroite Monday night show and put on against your favourite Sunday night show. Thank god for satellite Tv and time shifting. Last night's episode was really good but dealt with only one storyline... I won't say more than that because I don't want to spoil it for Mare & Lisa.

For some reason my brain wouldn't quiet down and let me sleep last night so I ended up on the couch with a Stephen King novel until about 4am, I'm super tired today and bound to be bitchy as hell by the end of the day.

Anna Nicole

Am I the only person who thinks that no matter how tragic it may seem, the death of Anna Nicole Smith is not news? It may be celebrity gossip, but I swear seeing the crying judge on the news over and over is driving me insane. There are real stories out there that deserve the time this rediculous circus is getting. There are actual people doing important things that we aren't hearing about because this is getting the airtime.

I mean come on... she's a playboy model who married a guy 63 years older than her, took all his money when he died, screwed half the guys in hollywood, and died addicted to drugs in a pool of her own vomit.... she's one step up from a street walking whore! There's half a dozen guys claiming to be the father of her kid...if that doesn't scream whore to you what does??????? And for the love of god stop comparing her to Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn was a glamorous movie star with talent who earned her money on the screen not on her back. The only similarity is that drugs took their lives. By that standard to you could compare Marilyn to every gutter trash whore who OD'd on the street... so let's not go there!

Anna Nicole's only real ass-et was about an inch and a half in front of her ass-whole. So please get her off the fucking news and report on something worthy.

Friday February 23, 2007

Appetizer
Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?

I have several. I have a scar under my left arm from where my gland was removed when I was six because it had a cancerous tumour on it. I received radiation on it and the entire should has never developed so I am lopsided and my left arm is about 2 inches shorter than my right. I have a scar behind my left ear, where another cancerous gland was removed whan I was 8 years old. I have two scars across my pubic area from an operation for undescended testicles caused by cancer treatment. I have a scar on my chest from the hickman cathetor that was inserted when I was 27 and about to have a bone marrow transplant to cure the leukemia I developed in adulthood (probably as a result of my cancer treatment as a child). I have a scar somewhere between my ass and balls for a reconstructive urinary track operation to correct a stricture that closed off the entire channel. And I have a scar or two on my soul from the general nastiness of the world today.

Soup
What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?

Read the appetizer again.... I'm alive today. Believe me it's against all odds.

Salad
Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.

Donald Trump. With so many talented, artistic, and creative people in the world, why does this self absorbed, concieted, pompos, arrogant, jackass get to be on TV?

Addendum: Have to ad Martha Stewart and Debbie Travis... both arrogant, condescending Bitches!

oh yeah... and George W Bush! Everytime that idiot opens his mouth I can hear the entire collective IQ of North America Drop a little more.

Main Course
What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")?

I don't think I said any funny words... when I was six I could say Malignant Histiocytosis... so there wasn't a lot of cutesy talk in my world.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.

I have always thought I was meant to do something important. (I just wish I knew what it was so I could start doing it.)

Today Sucked!!

I spent most of the day reinstalling programs and program updates, which is a huge pain in the ass. Everytime you do something you have to restart the damn computer so it takes forever!

I've finally been able to get back to the gym this week after being sick for so long so it feels like starting over, but it was certainly the highlight of my day.

Then Stephen called about Cabaret and wrecked the rest of my week. Oh well, what can you do?

Would it be unmanly to curl up into a little ball and cry for an hour or two?

On the bright side, once I get over my disapointment about not getting the part I want I will be able to get excited about the part I got. I just really wanted this one and put a lot of work into preparing for it, only to have to go through the entire audition process with the flu... and I'm really fucking disapointed right now.


It won't last long, but I'm gonna wallow in it for a day or two.

Wednesday

Not lot going on. We've been busy redoing our editing computers. Now we're at the point of reinstalling everything, it's a pain in the ass really, all the restarting after every install really slows things down.

Heroes was really good on Monday, of course just when it got really exciting it was over and we're in limbo for another week. There were storylines introduced last week that weren't touched this week, so we may not have resolutions to all the excitement next week. Way too many characters whose storylines haven't converged still. Stan Lee's cameo as the bus driver...tacky!

We were watching the Rick Mercer Report last night and once again they used my latest photochallenge entry. It was a really nice surprise... usually they send a release form so you know they're going to use it, but this time they didn't so I had no idea until I actually saw it on the screen.
Before:

After

I slapped that one together without much thought.

Snow Day

Another Snow day in New Brunswick. It figures that since we're nearing the end of February winter has decided to really get a foot hold. Of course unlike, the West Coast, Spring doesn't actually happen here until April anyway, so we might as well settle in and get used to the snow.

It was insane driving in this morning, it's like all the stupid people decide they abolutely have to drive when it's snowing... I swear we could clear up the national deficit with a stupid people tax. People crawling along the highway and starting and stopping and being overly cautious to the point of being a bigger road hazzard than the actual snow should get a ticket, because there's lots of em.

Anyway.... The weekend was really good. I finally hit the point of feeling like myself again and the cold is now an occasional little cough...yay.

Saturday's desert party was a small intimate affair, but very very fun. Scott and Alison brought some delicious melt in your mouth chocolate brownies, & Suzy and Chris brought a fabulous Tiramisu. I was a Tiramisu virgin up until Saturday so Suzy's creation will now be the bar by which I measure all other Tiramisu, and it's a pretty high bar! Knowing of Darrel's new love for the Stirling Cherry Pie, Brian and Helen brought not only the Cherry but the Apple as well... both very tasty. I made a Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake, some Chocolate Cip cookies, and I tried out my healthy alternative Banana Bread recipe (That I created myself...well I took an existing recipe and substituted all the ingredients to create a new recipe but that's kind of the same thing right?). The eight of us had a fantastic little sugar fest and some nice drinks, and it was a really good time. Darrell drank nearly two and half bottles of wine so he was pretty smashed by the end of the night, but I think he was the only casualty.

Sunday there was suprisingly little clean up to be done, since we used paper plates, so we had a fairly lazy day. I did some laundry, and we had some food that didn't contain huge amounts of sugar and fat, then we settled in for Brothers & Sisters, the series finally of Reba, The Amazing Race All Stars (They have Rob & Amber on it so we were not going to watch at all, but it was the only thing on in that time slot besides repeats of Raymond that we've seen a thousand times so we endured Rob & Amber... it is kind of nice to start off with a team you're hoping will lose), and of course Desperate Housewives (very exciting show last night).

Either a nasty bug has infiltrated our editing computers or windows has hit it's best buy date again and needs to be redone, either way we have to reformatt our editors. Darrell did his over the weekend and I am in the process of backing mine up now so it can be done today. It really sucks to have to wipe everything out and reinstall, but the system runs a lot better for about 4 months and then start to screw up again for the next 2 before it needs to be done again. I think that's as long as windows can go before it starts to completely degrade and fall apart. So today will be a very unproductive day as far as production in my room goes, but ultimately it will make everything run smotther and more reliably for the next several months.. so productivity is relative.

Tonight Heroes is on!!!!!!!! That show makes me so happy, it's like the highlight of my week (How sad is that?)

Sore Throat Medication

If you are singer or use your voice in any professional capacity and have a sore throat avoid sore throat meds and lozenges like the plague.

If your sore throat is caused by vocal strain, stop using your voice and rest... it's that simple. If it's caused by a cold or flu get plenty of rest and drink room temerature water. If resting your voice isn't an option and you absolutey have to perform, then perform with your sore throat within your limits. Do not ever by any means for any reason use things like Chloraseptic or Cepacal sprays or lozenges... you could do irrepairable damage to your vocal chords. These kinds of products should contain very large warning on them but they don't. They contain Anesthetics that make you feel better and give you a false sense that you can perform at 100%. You can't, and if you try you will create little tears in your vocal chords and they will bleed, leading to nodes that can only be removed surgically and your voice never fully recovers.(listen to old Elton John and New Elton John songs if you want to see a really good example of how node removal affects your voice)

I had many times singing with my band where I started to lose my voice over the course of a week long gig. The only option that works is to perform within the limitations of your sore throat. Don't go for the notes you can't hit, bring them down an octave, avoid the gaint songs and keep the audience dancing with easier songs to sing. Drink room temperature water and lots of it. Avoid alcohol, and during breaks don't visit with the bar guests... talking over the bar noise is the fastest way to wear out your voice. Water with honey, lemon, and cinnamon can sometimes help too.

Just remember to never ever under any circumstances use a product that masks the soreness in your throat. Your first and best choice is to rest your voice, but if you're in the middle of a run for a show or a gig then that soreness lets you know what your boudaries are... don't push past them. Anesthitizing your throat masks the pain and allows you to push way past where you should be and start damaging your voice permanantly... you only get one voice take care of it. Keep it well lubricated with lots of water, do a good vocal warm up, and get plenty of rest between shows.

Friday February 16, 2007

Appetizer
What sound, other than the normal ringing, would you like your telephone to make?
I'm fine with normal ringing. I can't stand all those cell phone ringtones. What's worse is when someone has a song as their ringtone and then won't answer the phone until the song is over...I hate that.

Soup
Describe your usual disposition in meteorological terms (partly cloudy, sunny, stormy, etc.).
Mostly sunny with occasional cloudy periods

Salad
What specific subject do you feel you know better than any other subjects?
Music & Art.

Main Course
Imagine you were given the ability to remember everything you read for one entire day. Which books/magazines/newspapers would you choose to read?
I'd start with some guitar lesson books, move on to some science journals, and finish up with some history texts.

Dessert
If a popular candy maker contacted you to create their next confection, what would it be like and what would you name it?
I don't know. I think I'd try to make something with no sugar or chemical sugar, sweetened naturally with honey or maple, and try to keep the rest of the ingredients as natural and healthy as possible... just cause it's an indulgence doesn't mean it has to be awful for you. I'd name it Mother Natures Kiss.
Tomorrow night is our second annual dessert party where people bring their favorite deserts. I'll be making a very fattening and indulgent chocolate cherry cheesecake, but I will also be trying a recipe I created for Banana bread that has whole wheat flower, olive oil, honey & Maple sweeteners, and no heavy cream, yet somehow still tastes like Banana bread without the gluton, sugar, or lactose.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day all! Is it just a coincidence that the initials for this day are VD? So happy VD to all.

Call Backs

I think all in all my call back went okay. Okay but not spectacular. I think I sang well even though my voice wasn't all there. I was physically off during the ballad, because I was consentrating too hard on my pitch and power to put much of my body into the mix. I did Two Ladies with Kizzy and Kristi and we had lots of fun being naughty. Bertis was a powerhouse vocally. I don't know what he did physically because everyone waited in the hallway while people did their auditions, but I know he's really good with the physicallity so I'm guessing he was on his game. All it really comes down to, I think is going to be the size of the of the other cast members. If Sally is and the girls are amazons then a pipsqueak like me isn't going to cut it, on the other hand if everyone is tiny then Bertis may be too much of a giant. Either way it really hasn't got much to do with either of us anymore, and the show is going to be good no matter who gets what part, because we all have so much fun together that it will come through on stage no matter whose standing where.

Tuesday

Throat still sore.... call back tonight at 7!!! Oh well whatever happens happens.

Watched Heroes last night and it left me longing for a little conflict resolution. There are so many characters and so many stories within the story that it is taking a long time to tell it all and starting to feel a little draggy. How I met Your Mother, the Class, and Two and Half Men were all very funny. The New Adventures of old Christine isn't back on until March and in it's place was a new sitcom called Rules of Engagment, with David Spade among others, and it was pretty good.

My speaking voice is still raspy and thin, but I don't think we're doing any scene work tonight, and I always lose my speaking voice long before my singing voice so hopefully I've got enough there to show Stpehen what he wants to see and get this part.

Cold is still hanging in there

I got lots of rest this weekend and still the cold is insisting on sticking around. It has become an occasional annoying cough and rhaspy throat. I lost my voice by the end of the day Friday and am still very scratchy today. I have my call back for the Emcee tomorrow night and Stephen wants to hear two songs... luckily even though my speaking voice is thin and rhaspy I still have about 70 percent power on my singing voice and should be able to sing well enough tomorrow. (Keeping fingers crossed) Gotta put in my best foot forward tomorrow because as far as I know Bertis is also being considered for the part so I gotta bring everything I got.

I didn't get a chance to call my grandmother on Friday because I couldn't talk to her even if I did, but I did manage to talk to her on Saturday. She's doing well and has almost no pain. She's having to keep off her feet and limit her movement for about six weeks until she's healed up. She had a total hip replacement so that's a pretty big deal, and she doesn't want to go putting it out or anything like that because that would be a disaster. It'll probably drive her a little nuts to not be able to get up and do the stuff she normally does for the next six weeks but it's a small price to pay, and eventually you get used to it.

Saturday evening we met up with Brian and Helen at the Dolan Rd Irving for a bite. Brian was headed off to play hockey so Helen came back to our place and hung out with us until he was done. We watched some Absolutely Fabulous from the specials DVD. We watched two episodes that none of us had ever seen before so that was cool.

Sunday I did laundry. I do laundry every Sunday. I did not watch the Grammys...never do, don't care for awards shows at all. We did watch the new episodes of Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters... the Housewives are really heating up and someone if going to die very soon possibly even next week. I got to talk to my Dad for awhile on Sunday, he called to let me know my grandmother was home but I already knew, but we got to talk about other things too. He's working out of town right now so I don't get to hear from him often because he doesn't come home every weekend.

Darrell and I also started taking an Iodine suppliment this weekend, so we'll see what effect that has. I am now making plans for the upcoming desert party on Saturday... I'm thinking I'll do the chocolate cherry cheesecake this time, and I've been experimenting with some ideas for a sugar/white flour/ margarine/lactose free banana bread recipe... I think I'll give it a try. Save up your points and cheat days only five more sleeps!!!

How I met your Mother & Heroes is on Tonight....YAY!!!

End of a Very long week

This week has dragged on and on it seems. I am now headed home to curl up on the couch and pray to whatever powers that be for some relief from this awful cold. I want it gone, preferably at least two days before I have to go to the call back so I have some time to rest and build myself back up. At the moment my throat is all scratchy and I can barely talk, so I'm glad no one's expecting me to sing today.

On a happy note my grandmother returned home yesterday with her new hip. My aunt says everything is going well and she is doing fine. I will be calling her tonight to see how she's feeling.

Friday February 09, 2007

Appetizer
Have you been sick yet this winter? If so, what did you come down with?
I'm sick right now! I don't know if it's a flu or cold, but I had a week of fever, followed by hacking and coughing and losing my voice. Still coughing, Still losing my voice from time to time

Soup
What colors dominate your closet?
Red, Blue, Green

Salad
How would you describe your personal "comfort zone"?
I have a pretty big personal comfort zone. I'm fairly secure individual so I'm pretty comfy in most situations.

Main Course
On which reality show would you really like to be a contestant?
The only one worth watching... the Amazing Race! You get to fly all over the world and see and do things you wouldn't even if you were a tourist going to that destination

Dessert
Which holiday would you consider to be your favorite?
I really don't get all jazzed up about any holiday, most of them are so commercialized now that they all become more annoying than anything else.
My favorite "Holiday" is when we just take a couple unplanned days off work and go somewhere new without any plan or schedule... just explore and have fun with no preasure to buy stuff or any of that other bullshit.

I gotta Dance!

Last night's dance auditions went fairly well, I thought, in spite of breaking into a coughing and choking fit after each go around. I thought I was going to bring up a lung at times. It's not easy to get in touch with your inner whore when he's haking like he has TB. But all that aside I think I did alright, it wasn't a supereasy dance by any means but it also wasn't superhard. I had difficulty with the spins at the end because I'm congested making my equilibrium a little whonky, and when Jenn said to freestyle for ten beats at the end of the last go around I was like yeah...no.. I'm having a hard enough time remembering the steps and not falling down hacking to start improving tonight.

Brian and Helen gave me a lift home, and I read some more of my book to distract my mind before turning in so I didn't replay the choreography over and over in my head all night long. Today I'm still hacking but not as bad, and hopefully by the time call backs come around I'll be recovered.


PS. I did get a call back, the date just hasn't been set yet.

Thursday

This has been the longest week ever, or at least it sure feels that way. MY flu or cold, whatever it is, has now moved into the hack up alung but nothing comes out phase which is ohh sooo pleasant! I got a chest cough & Cold syrup that basically hasn't done anything but taste bad, so I'm down to halls.

Dance auditions are going to be interesting because everytime I exert myself I launch into a fit of coughing. Here's hoping that phase of the virus is the last phase and that by the end of the day it will be mostly passed.

Auditions

I went to auditions for Cabaret last night and there was a pretty good turn out. I saw Kizzy, Kristi, Lisa (used to be Anthony), June Garnett, Harry Cross, Scott Green, Adam Masson, and whole bunch of others I haven't seen in a while and some new faces as well.

I walked over from the office in the extreme cold, so when I got there I had spent about ten minutes hacking up a lung before I felt better again. The singing portion of the evening went okay. I wasn't 100%, but I think I put out some power even though I felt scratchy. All in all I think it was alright... it is, after all just the first round of auditions, and Stephen has heard me sing a time or two before when I have been 100% so hopefully he will fill in the any blanks that may have been there thanks to the scratchy throat. I did my scene with Scott Green and it also went well, so all in all I'd have to say I feel pretty good about it... well as good as I ever feel about auditioning for things.

When I got home I couldn't sleep because I had the entire score from the show rattling around and around in my brain so I went out into the living room and started reading the Da Vince Code. I got the movie for Christmas and wasn't sure whether to read the book first or watch the movie first. I opted for the Movie first because generally if the book is really great you are always disapointed with the movie because they can't cover everything a book can. After a few chapters I found myself wanting to drift off so I closed the cover and went to bed. I wasn't drifting because I wasn't interested in the book, on the contrary it is really good from the get go so far, I was just really tired and once I finally switched my brain out of excited Cabaret mode my eyes wanted to close.

That's always the risk I take when I opt to calm my mind with a book, because if it's really good I can actually start forcing myself awake to read just one more chapter... well one more chapter.. and then before you know it it's four in the morning and your halfway through a novel you just cracked the spine on earlier.

Right Plan

Going home last night instead of to the auditions was definitly the right plan. I feel quite a bit better today... not 100%, but a much higher one. It sucks I have this flu right now and as a result I am guaranteed to not be able to turn out a 100% performance quality audition, but I'm going to pull out all the stops and hope for the best. I just hope I don't start hacking and coughing through the songs.

I went to the gym yesterday and managed a pretty brisk 20 minutes on the treadmill, even ran a couple laps... much more would have been completely counterproductive. I then spent a few minutes in the suana stretching. The heat felt really good, but I can't take it for long.

If you're auditioning tonight I'll see you there; if you auditioned yesterday I hope things went well for you; if you're doing it tomorrow break a leg; and I'm sure I'll see everyone on Thursday for the dance auditions.

Fever Finally Broke

We went home after work friday and I immediately hit the couch. Brian and Helen came over and hung out for awhile. We talked about upcoming auditions and watched a bit of the movie so Helen could hear the Cabaret song. I made her a copy of the Original cast cd since that is by far the best version of that song going. The Revival CD has lots of great songs on it and some of them are done really well, but Natasha Richardson is no Jill Haworth, in fact she even gets some of the words to Cabaret wrong which completely blows the meaning and emotion of an entire phrase. I had actually put all things Cabaret away in September so everything could just sit up in my little brain and ferment there. I don't want to go into the auditions and do an Alan Cummings or Joel Grey impersonation... I want to pull the things that stand out most about the two and see what sticks to the wall. It's never a good idea to watch a movie or listen to a soung track so close to an audition or performance because it taints your ideas about what the character should be. That's why I got the movie and every version of the cast recordings I could find last spring and listened to them to death over the summer, then put them away. So all the big stuff that stuck out would pop out at me and I could work on filling in the blanks with my own stuff.

Brian and Helen left around ten, Darrell and I watched Men in Trees then Godivas and went to bed. I still had the fever Friday.

Woke up Saturday and still had the fever. It even grew a little over the course of the day. I spent the entire day on the couch with home improvement, design, and decorating shows. Darrell went out and got me some tylenol rapid relief and some expectorant cough syrup which helped a bit. My Dad called to let me know my Grandmother had her hip replacement surgery finally and that everything went really well. They still have her pretty much imobilized but so far so good. Maybe she'll finally be able to get around without all the pain. Honestly when I think of how long she waited just to see the specialist and how uncomfortable she was for that entire time it makes me want to go on a rampage in some Legaslative and Parliament buildings. *begin rant*
It's about time we stopped allowing politicians private or special access to health care and make them use the system the rest of us do... then we'd see some action. I remember one night up at the emergency at the regional, I had a stricture in my urinary tract and it closed completely.... I was in extreme pain... in fact it required surgery to open... yet I still had to wait over a half and hour in the waiting room just to see the nurse. During that time a call came in that one of the MPs or MLAs or something was on the way in and everyone scurried about to get ready. We pee ons of the public never even saw them arrive, they were shown in through private ways and didn't have to wait. So what was the big emergency that took precedence over my immensely painful condition... the MP or MLA's (Can't remember which)kid had an ear ache. Let's start sticking these assholes in the waiting room with everyone else and see how much action we get on health care reform then.
*end rant*
My Dad said my Grandmother is doing well, and my stepmother is staying down there with her to help look after her, so I'm very happy that everything is going to be better for her from here on in, because she's had it pretty shitty health wise the past couple years.
We turned in fairly early Saturday night and overnight I woke up with my pillow completely soaked with sweat and the fever gone.

I had a completely feveless day on Sunday, but didn't want to take any chances so I still spent the majority of it on the couch.

I am playing it by ear today as to whether or not to go to the gym, and what to do if I do go. It certainly won't be a full workout or a run because I haven't been in well over a week, the majority of which I had a recurring fever. I do feel like I might benefit from a long walk on the treadmill and a stretch in the dry heat sauna though. I'll probably give my throat a little longer to recover and go to auditions tomorrow night instead of tonight.

Friday Feb. 02, 2007

Appetizer
What was one of the fashion fads when you were a teenager?
I was a teenager in the 80's so we had big hair, blazers with shoulder pads, skinny leather ties, rugby pants, colourful bill cosby sweaters, if it was fugly we were probably wearing it in the 80's.

Soup
Name one thing you think people assume about you when they first meet you.
I think they probably assume I'm older than I am for many reasons I won't bother getting into

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how hard do you work?
How can rate that? There are times when you don't feel good or you just need a coast day so you slack off to a 5, and then there are times when you're firing on all cylinders and you're up at 11... I think generally I work very hard so I'll give myself an 8

Main Course
If you were given a free 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl to sell anything you currently own, what would you advertise?
I have lots of projects I'd sell... Baby Annoucement paintings, Grandma's Brag book DVDs (you can actually check out the one I did for my Mom on my Animation Samples page), A novel I wrote that I haven't tried to get published yet... the list is long.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I love to ________ when it is _________.
I love to walk outside when it is warm and raining.

ARGH!

I ended up taking Tuesday and Wednesday off. This flu has been very nasty so far, the fever associated with it keeps recurring. I'll feeel great for most of the day then end up with the chills later on.

I haven't been to the gym since last Friday as a result, and have opted to take a pass today as well, since I'm not 100% or even 80 for that matter.

The two days I took off I followed the diet plan laid out in the Burn Fat Feed muscle book and holy crap I've never eaten that much food in a day in my entire life. I could only manage to do five meals each day because there aren't really enough hours in my day to fit in the sixth unless I start getting up super super early ... and that ain't happening. I figured out my maintenance calorie level to be 2466 per day and my fat burn level to be 1900. So I will need to do three days of 1900 and one at 2466, then continue cycling them. Then I had to divide all that by the number of meals per day to get portion size, and then I had to factor in the macronutrient ratios ie: 50% Complex Carbs (Starchy carbs like rice or Potatoes combined with fibrous carbs... vegetables), 30% lean protien (chicken, trimmed pork, fish (not an option since Darrell's alergic)), 20% Fat (Ideally essential fats containing omega 3 and six like Olive Oil, Hemp Oil, Flax oil, nuts, or oily fish (Again not an option)).

Once you figure all that out and come up with four meals at 400 calories and one at 300 you are talking about a lot of food. It's actaully amazing how much you have to eat when you're eating the proper things, but you don't end up feeling bloated, you have awsome energy all day long, and you don't get cravings at night in front of the TV because you're bored.

I'm not quite ready to throw myself completely onto this plan yet, because it is going to take some serious planning and frequent trips to the grocery store to pull it off, so I have to sit down and make a menu, buy some essentials, and really figure out exactly how to aproach it the most effeicient way possible... because you can't just wing it... that would be impossible.

The Weekend

The weekend started off not so good. I went into work on Friday because I was feeling better and decided I might feel even better if I went to the gym for a run... big mistake. When you are sick stay sick and get rest not excercise. My legs rebelled completely and I wasn't even able to get through a quarter mile running. I opted instead for a 40 minute walk on the treadmill and some time in the sauna (the heat felt really good). Near the end of the day my fever returned and I spent the rest of Friday shivering on the couch under a blanket. Thursday we had stopped into Blockbuster and bought some DVD's. Darrell wanted to rent "An Inconvenient Truth" by (should have been president of the United States) Al Gore but ended up buying a copy instead, and I picked up four previously veiweds for $20. So Friday night I wrapped up tight in my Blankie and Watched "Failure to Launch". It was a fairly good movie but I'm glad I only paid five dollars for it.

We watched "An Inconvenient Truth" on Thursday night and it was extremely eye opening. It really is too bad the Repulicans stole that election because I bet Al Gore would have been one of the greatest Presidents the US ever had. Oh.. in case you don't know "An Inconvenient Truth" is about Global Warming and well worth seeing if you haven't already... Like I said it's a real eye opener.

Saturday we had Helen's Birthday Party at our place. I made a roast beef dinner for seven with twice baked Potatoes and stir fried Veggies. Nancy made sex in a pan for desert (sooooooooooo yummy), she and Chad also brought the Boney M & Scissor Sisters DVDs (it was an Abba/disco party. Ironically we didn't get to Abba until everyone was leaving), and Bertis made the Birthday cake (triple layer chocolate cake with Chocolate cream cheese & Sour cream icing...... yes, it was as good as it sounds and then some & that third layer really separates the lightweights from the truely committed.). It ended kind of early but was still a really good evening with friends.

Sunday I was back on the couch in my balnkie and my fleece robe. I managed to get the laundry done, and watch "The Producers" dvd, and that was about it.

Today I am at working, so far feeling pretty good... touch wood. I think I will pass on the gym today just to be on the safe side, and if I have a fever relapse I will definitely stay home tomorrow no matter how I feel in the morning. I have to get back in top shape for Auditions next week... I know there are some extremely talented people going after the role I want so I have to be able to bring a performance level audition if I want to even be considered for the part.

Feeling crappy

I started developing a cold yesterday. I had a fever and a stuffy nose. Today just a stuffy nose and sore throat. I was going to stay home, but felt better today than I did yesterday and have alot of work to do. Luckily Darrell had the cold first so I don'thave to worry about giving it to him because he's more than likely where I got it from. I hope it doesn't drag on for along time because Cabaret auditions are coming up a week from Monday, and I want to be in top shape for them. I've been working my ass off at the gym to get my stomach flat, and listening to every version of the show I can find to familiarize myself with the music... so it would suck like hell if I had a cold the week of auditions.

Friday January 26, 2007

Appetizer
If you could take lessons to learn any musical instrument, which would you want to learn?
Paino, Guitar, Violin/Fiddle

Soup
Have you ever mistaken a person for someone else?
Many many times...I really suck with names.

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?
9

Main Course
What's the closest you've ever been to a dangerous animal?
Define Dangerous... Some people consider Pit Bull Terrier Dangerous, but they're basically only as bad as the people who own them. I've been about 20 feet from a bear at the dump in the Queen Charolottes. I've been to zoos where the animals are right onthe other side of the fense or glass. I held a boa constrictor. Darrell wrangled a Porcupine into a box in our yard to relocate him and I was there.

Dessert
When was the last time you lost your patience?
I'm generally an impatient person, but I'm aware of it so I work very hard to not lose it. I can't remember a recent incident of losing my patience with an actual person but I do lose it with my computer occasionally.

Burning fat Book

I've been reading the book I downloaded and discovered I've been doing a few thing wrong and could've been getting better results. For starters my runs haven't been long enough, as in duration not distance. I've been doing 20 minutes of cardio a day which sounds like a lot, but 40 minutes a day is what I should've been doing. Only genetically gifted people see results on 20 minutes a day, and of all my wonderful gifts fat burning wasn't one of them.

I am starting a new daily eating routine based on what I've learned in this book, because I may have actually been acidentally starving myself without knowing it. I'm not sure of that, because I haven't done all the math yet, but it's possible. I'll be bumping it up to six small meals a day three hours apart to supercharge my metabolism. I'll have three days where I'm at a 20% calorie deficit then one where I'm at my maintenance level so my body doesn't go into starvation mode... this way I'll burn fat without losing lean body mass. One of the little things I didn't know was that losing more than 2 pounds a week is detrimental, because your body can only burn two pound of fat off per week and anything else is water and muscle mass... which will induce the starvation cycle of your body, lower your metabolism, and make your body start storing fat.... you may be losing weight the entire time, but you're screwing yourself while you do it. Of course that's all based on someone whose in the average ranges like me...I've just got some pudge on my gut I'm by no means obese.

At any rate the book is in pdf form and I've uploaded it to my rapidshare acocunt so if you want have a read through it here's the link to download it:
click here
Just choose the free download option...you don't have to sign up for anything.

Good Weekend

Friday I got in a really good upperbody workout plus a mile & a half run. I downloaded a really good book about burning fat that will help me "reveal" the abs. Everyone has great abs, they just have to remove the top layer of fat to get at them.
After work we stopped out at the vortex to get some velcro from fabricville and to pick up my new knife block from Paderno. Darrell got some books from the naturopath he's been seeing about Thyroid, Iodine, and Natural Hormones. I read the Iodine book and was really surprised about how much I didn't know about how much the body needs it and how the majority of us are really deficient in it. Unless you're snacking on seaweed daily you're levels are probably fairly low. What is scary is that every cell in your body uses iodine especially your Thyroid gland and Breast tissue. Iodine deficiency leads to cysts in Breast tissue and eventually breast cancer, and don't think that because you're using Iodized salt you're making up the deficiency either because the dose of iodine in it isn't nearly enough... and most multivitamins don't contain enough either. The book is called "Iodine... Why you Need it, Why You Can't live without it." by David Brownstein. It's not superlong, so I might scan it into PDF for reference.

Saturday we met up with Brian, Helen, & Helen's mother (Margaret) at bowlarama for a couple hours of bowling, then a quick meal at the Dolan Rd Irving, followed by a couple episodes of Keeping Up Appearances at our place.

Sunday I got in 45 minutes on the Eliptical trainer, and managed to sing Four seasons songs for the majority of the time. That high falsetto stuff isn't easy when you're workingout, but 20 minutes in I could still sing ragdoll so I feel really good about where I am as far as lung capacity and cardio.

I made the mistake of getting Darrell to try the Cherry Pie from Stirlings.. mostly because I wanted it gone so I didn't pig out on it. It was a big mistake since he loved it and it has become his new obsession... did you know they sell them by the case? That's right by the case! Darrell has a really bad habit of finding something he likes and overdoing it to the extreme... so we have cherry pie... stop by for a piece there's lots.

Apples

We stopped by Stirling on Rothesay Ave on our way home a couple days ago and picked up some apples. We'd heard of the place before and driven by it often enough but never ever stopped before that. I can honestly say we won't be driving by without stopping too many times in the future. I'm a freak about apples, I love em, love em, love em. But we don't buy them as often as we should because they are so damn expensive. We both only eat the Red & Golden Delicious apples, but they're priced at the grocery store like they contain actual gold.... I mean come on we're talking about something that, unlike Money, actually does grow on trees. Anyway, Stirlings has basket upon basket of beautiful, Nova Scotia Grown, apples of all varieties for half the price of the grocery store... and they're really good. I got 6.2 pounds of red delicious apples for 5.95, at Superstore they are nearly 2 dollars a pound. They also have uncooked frozen pies of all descriptions. I generally like to bake my own pies, and not wanting to toot my own horn too much, am actually really good at it... but I picked up a cherry pie for 4.50 just to try them out.... and wow! Well worth the 4.50.

I know it's not a big deal, and probably a little silly... but if you want good apples stop in to Stirlings on Rothesay avenue it's definitely the best deal in SJ. They're between Halifax Seed and the exit to the highway, a white building that has Buy Apples in red letter on the from. If you make it to the hanger shaped convience store before the exit you've passed it.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Appetizer
Which television shows do you just refuse to miss?
Smallville, Heroes, Brothers & Sisters, and Desperate Housewives

Soup
Who did you last speak to on the telephone?
If by last spoke to you mean just a quick chat it would be Darrell to tell him I was almost done in the blood clinic.. come get me.
If you mean really spoke to as in had an actual conversation it would be my sister, we talked for about an hour last week.

Salad
How many pillows do you keep on your bed?
6

Main Course
Name one addition to your computer (software, hardware, etc.) that you'd love to have.
I would love to have a 3d scanner for my computer. That would be awsome.

Dessert
What is your favorite foreign food?
I love most things Italian, especially Fetucinni Carbonara and Baked Tortellinni in cream sauce au gratin.

Cold Cold Cold

It is really cold today. I nearly froze walking up to Dr Mackin's office to get a blood req. I got the results back from my test in November and it turns out my thyroid was low, so I have to have it retested. That might explain the sore throat and weight gain at the time. I'm hoping it was just an anomoly and everything is back to normal, because after everything Darrell has gone through over his thyroid I have no desire to go down that road. Although medication tends to work exactly the way it is supposed to on me so I propabably wouldn't have the problems Darrell has had.

On another note, I got back up to 2 miles running on the threadmill. All the treadmills at the gym have a 20 minute time limit built into them, and I am so far only up to 4.5 mph, so I can only get 1.5 miles out of a complete cycle and have to start it over again after the cool down. There is an exception though, lately I've noticed that threadmill number 8 has been set to an hour instead of 20 minutes. I don't know if it's a permanant thing or not, but it's pretty handy for doing the full 2 miles. It wouldn't make any difference here or there if you were to go at a busy time, as everyone is asked to only use machines for 20 minutes during busy times, but I generally go between 2 and 4 when it is slow so there aren't people waiting for machines.

Snow has Arrived

I've been careful to try and not brag to my family and friends in western Canada about how mild our winter has been because I knew it was coming eventually and would last a lot longer than thier's will, and now it is here. It also looks like it is going to make a concerted effort to stick around awhile. Oh well it was a good run while it lasted. I just hope we don't suddenly start getting blasted the way the west coast has been so far. I can't believe how nasty it's been out there! For the first time since moving here, I was actually glad to be here instead of there during the winter.

I've mostly settled back into my routine, although I think I'm suffering a bit of seasonal depression because I have a really hard time drumming up any enthusiasm about anything right now.

The holidays set me back on my runnning. I was up to two miles a days before and have dropped back to a mile and half, but I've only been back at it everyday for a week, so I'm not too worried about it. Besides I'm doing that mile and a half at a faster pace and steeper incline. Now if I could just stop myself from all the snacking on chocolate and high calory crackers etc, I'd probably make some progress on those abs. Don't get me wrong they're pretty solid in there, they're just under that awful layer of flab. hahaha. I am starting to see a dividing line form between left and right though, so I know I'm on the right track.

Friday January 12 2007

Appetizer
What comes to mind when you see the color orange?
I think of warmth

Soup
Did you ever get in trouble while you were in school? If so, what was it for?
Which time? I had a tendency to not take everything I was being fed at face value and often challenged the teachers to justify things, which was at times disruptive. I remember once having to write an oppinion essay for grade 11 English. It could be about anything I had a strong oppinion about, so long as it was structured well. At the time I was working at a corner convenience store and was training a new guy who was getting a's in grade ten math, but had to be taught to work a cash register and count back change (The tills didn't do all that for you back then), so I wrote my essay about how the school system is neglecting to give people basic life skills for survival in the workforce. It had an introduction, body, and conclusion; contained no spelling or grammar errors, and was slightly over the word count requirment... but the teacher didn't like the subject and graded the content instead of the construction. I ended up in the Vice Principal's office and my Grandmother was called, and a whole big thing ensued... it was rediculous.

Salad
Which topping(s) make up your perfect pizza?
Ham, Pineapple, Feta Cheese, Black Olives, and extra cheese

Main Course
Do you believe in UFOs/aliens/etc.? Why or why not?
Absolutely. UFOs are just Unidentified objects in the air, usually top secret government test planes. I dont' think we're being visted by advanced alien civiliazations, but I don't discount the possibility either.
There are other civilizations in the universe, it only makes mathematical sense. One of the things we've learned on Earth is how tenacious life is here, even in the most inhospitable places on the planet there is life. Volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean spewing molten material in an oxygenless environment still support life forms, so it's pretty clear that anywhere life can take hold it will.
Then start doing some math, if just one in every billion stars had a solar system, and just one in every billion of those solar systems has planets that could support life, and just one in every billion of those planets actually does support life, and just one in every billion of those supports intelligent life (by our definition)... then the number of inhabited planets would still be too high to quantify.

Dessert
What color is your bedspread/comforter/quilt?
Our bedspread is actually a duvet so it's white, but the current cover on it is large horizontal stripes of three different shades of brown microsuede.

Back in the Swing of things

I'm having a hard time getting back to normal after having so much time off work over the holidays. I know...oh poor me took too much time off..wah wah wah... but it really is hard to get back into the routine. We are halfway through our first full week back of the New Year, and it's slow going for me. I have a couple projects on the go and I am slowly getting back to where I was before the break. It feels a little like coming into something halfway through even though I'm the one that did the first half.

Sunday I made a big roast and did a double baked potatoe that had sour cream, bacon, mushrooms, and green onion in the mix, but last night I took the potatoe to a whole new level. The potatoes on Sunday were missing that little bite of flavour, so I added parmessan cheese, and Darrell suggested sticking a stick of cheese in the potatoe mixture so it would have a melty center. So last night's creation was:
1) Bake Potatoes until almost completely finished.
2) Chop up some bacon & Mushrooms and fry in a pan.
3) take potatoes out of oven and cut in half.
4) Scoop potatoe out of skin leaving enough around the edges to make the outer peel sturdy like a little bowl.
5) Brush the outer peel with Olive oil and place on a pan
6) mix Potatoe, Bacon & Mushroom, chopped Green onion (or chives or both), a sprinkle of dill, some grated parmessan, and sour cream... then mash it all up nice and gooey (I used the new stand up mixer for the task)
7) spoon a shallow layer of the mash into the potatoe skin bowls.
8) put a stick of cheese in the center of mash layer. (I used swiss but you can use anything)
9) spoon more mash on top of cheese stick filling the potatoe skin bowl. (you can be fancy and use a piping bag with a tip if you want it to be decorative)
10) put the tray back in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. You can brown the tops with the broiler if you want (matter of personal taste).

I made about two dozen of them last night because they're really great heated up in the Microwave for lunch.

You can substitute the sour cream for goats milk if you've got a problem with lactose... same goes for the cheese. In fact you can put almost anything you want in the potatoe. the basic recipe is just to bake the potatoe, spoon out insides, mash, pipe back in, and bake some more..... all the extra stuff is whatever you want it to be... hell you could put chocolate chips in there if you really wanted too.

Goodies in the mail

I got a whole bunch of goodies in the mail yesterday. I got a couple cards from my cousins with pictures of their kids and letters about what's been going on. Everyone hasa grown up so much, I can't believe that my cousins (who are the same age as I am) have children entering their teens... It makes me feel pretty old.

I also got an awsome package from my Stepmom containing 12 jars of homemade dill pickles. She's an amazing canner and has quite a large customer base for her pickles and preserves back in Williams Lake. She makes jams, salsa, dill pickles, hot pickles, mustard pickles, soups, relish.. you name it, but our favourite thing is the pcikles mixed with cauliflower and now we have 12 jars of them. yum! Plus she cushioned each jar for the long trip across the country in a sock, so we have half a dozen new pairs of socks... very practical.

I spent some time today scanning all the new photos I got over the holidays and some older pictures I've been meaning to get to from a couple years ago.. some of them all the way back to 1999. I'll try to post them to my flikr page today. I finally got the rest of the Christmas pics up yesterday.

Holidays

Wow it seems like a very long time since I've been at work. I took from the Friday before Christmas right up until today off. It was very nice and relaxing.

There was the usual flurry of activity leading up to and during Christmas and then we just coasted through the rest of the season.

We had Christmas Dinner at Bertis' Place with the Bonds, and I made everyone Artic fleece robes. I did my own early in the week before Christmas and got Bertis' done in the evenings after work throughout the week. The Friday I took off work was a very productive day sewing wise. Helen was going stir crazy at home so she dropped in just to hang out until Brian got off work and watched me make Brian's robe (although she didn't know it was Brian's she just thought I was making it for Darrell.) I managed to get her to try on my robe and made a few mental notes about how it fit her, then we all met up at the Dolan Road Irving for a bite when Brian got off work. Darrell had to work all Friday and got home fairly late. He was shooting a blues concert at the Imperial. After the Irving I headed home and finished Helen's robe and cut out all the pieces for Darrell's before calling it quits for the day. Saturday I did all the sewing on Darrell's robe, a bit of shopping, then Brian & Helen came over in the evening to hang out and have a couple drinks. Then Sunday (Christmas eve) I sewed a Stocking for Brian and Helen's dog Yorkie then closed up my little sweat shot for the Holidays.

Christmas morning Darrell and I got up and opened presents. We both went a little over board on the gift giving. I got an 8 inch Henkel knife, a bottle of Drakaar Noir cologne (I've loved it since I was 20), an mp3 player for the gym, the Da vinci Code Dvd, a 2 KG bar of chocolate... that's right KG, and bunch of other things. My Mom sent us $100 which we put towards a new stand up mixer, and my sister sent us pictures of the family and the boys with a Chapters gift card. My grandmother sent out a package with a tin of chocolates and two retractable leashes that are painted like dogs faces and have flashlights in the nose. I got Darrell a Hot wash washer fluid thing from Canadian tire, an Andrea Boceli CD (yes he actually wanted one), a Peter Gabriel CD, and a new car stereo to play them on. His old stereo is an original part from his 97 vehicle so it kept spitting out any cds with music he burned himself, now he can play anything including Mp3s.

We headed up to Bertis' around 2 and had a fantastic Roast Beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, and brocolli at about 4. then we had some nice eggnog and played a couple rounds of Taboo. We laughed a lot and had a really good time.

Boxing day we went to Brian and Helen's for an improptu get together. Chad and Nancy were there and we all played Crainium which was hilarious.

The rest of the week flew by pretty quick. Saturday we went to Chad and Nancy's place for the evening. It was the first time we've been to their new place. They found a beautiful house on the west side with hardwood and heated tile floors. I really liked it.

Sunday we had a new Years Party at Brian and Helen's place. Helen's Mom Margaret is here from England, she got in on the 27th I think could be the 28 those days all run together in my mind. We saw her at Chad and Nancy's the night before as well. So Brian, Helen, Margaret, Bertis, Chad, Nancy, Darrell, and I all rang in the new year with a potluck dinner, some nice cocktails, a rousing game of Taboo followed by a very close game of Cranium, and a bottle of champagne. Chad and Nancy and their chocolate Lab Bailey stayed in our guest room that night and we started the first day of January (as is mine and Darrell's only real tradition) with a breakfast of Eggs Benny and hashbrowns. Nancy and Chad added to the feast with a nice sweet juicy pineapple.

Tuesday (the 2nd) we had planned to go into work but didn't make it past the couch. I didn't even make it into clothes and spent the entire day in my robe watching tv and dvds. I managed to watch a lot of the Christopher Reeve Superman box set over the holidays. I'm don't think I had actually ever seen Superman 4 before yesterday, and there are still a lot of extra features left to get to for future veiwing.

Today we are back to work and I will be posting some pictures from the holidays to my flikr pages some time today hopefully. I will also be hitting the gym this afternoon to start undoing some of the holiday damage. All that Chocolate, I'm suprised my gut doesn't look like a Toblerone.

Three chocolate doors to open

Only three doors left on my chocolate calendar. I got all the shopping done last night and my bank account is now suffering the damaging effects of rapid weight loss.
I still have a little sewing and a lot of wrapping to do before I'm all done, but basically nothing to stress out about.

The big question today is to tip or not to tip. Generally I tip the Mail Carrier at Christmas time, but we no longer get mail delivered to our house, it all comes to a box down at the end of the Road on the other side of the Highway. I'm leaning toward no tip since I have to travel to pick it up and I've never actually seen the person who delivers it. At the office however, it's a different story. That guy comes right in and drops it off and he even bring cookies for the dogs everyday... so needless to say he's getting a card with a $20 bill enclosed. Do most people still give their mail carrier, paperboy, or garbage man a card with a small gratuity in it, or is that a lost tradition? My feeling is, I always tip the person who occasionally delivers food, so shouldn't I occasionally tip the person who always delivers mail?

Five More Sleeps

Monday we left work at 2 and went out to the Vortex (Dre's word for the malls and box stores in the McCallister area.... I'm adopting it into my vocabulary) to shop. I hit fabricville first for a few things I needed there, while Darrell went to Canadian tire. Then we both headed over to the mall and wandered around. We picked up a couple nice sweaters at Sears, then had dinner at Swiss Chalet. We had the garlic cheese bread which is always awsome, and chicken pot pie, which was kind of bland and nothing to write home about.

When we got home I had a message from my Sister, Amanda, looking for addresses, so I called her back and talked for about an hour. I also got to talk to Cole for a few minutes. For a three year old he's really quite chatty on the phone and has a pretty good vocabulary. I asked him if he was excited that Santa was coming and he told me Grandma was coming home in three sleeps. Mom has been working out in the boonies for quite a while and comes home for a few days at Christmas, so she should get a kick out of knowing Cole is more excited she's coming than Santa Claus.

After I got off the phone I got to work on finishing my robe and an hour later it was done. It is sooooooooooo warm. I won't need to keep my blanky on the couch for watching tv anymore.

I still have a bunch of shopping left to do today and our house is a complete disaster area so there's lots of cleaning to be done.

I finally posted apicture of the second painting I did: I used Winnie the Pooh in this one. I'm not crazy about the way they photograph so I may go back to scanning them in sections and piecing them back together.




Here's the young porcupine a few days before Darrell moved him to his new home. I actually got really close to him to take the pictures but he didn't like it and waddled away as quickly as he could.

The Weekend

We had a really good weekend. Friday night I got a lot of sewing done, and finished both pairs of PJs by Saturday. Saturday I almost destroyed most of what I touched, and managed to kill my standup mixer while making a cheesecake. It was one of those stupid things you do that you know is stupid while you're doing it and you can actually see yourself wrecking the machine. Needless to say I felt like a complete idiot.

I was making two cheesecakes to take to Brian Chisholms annual Christmas party that night and burned the mixer out on the first one, so I threw everything into the blender for the second one and that worked really well. I saw Bob and Deb at the Superstore doing their monthly groceries, at some point on Saturday, and got to visit with them in the isle for a while. Brian's party that night was fun as usual, but most of the people we knew left fairly early so we were home by 11.

There is a really young porcupine who decided to take up residence somewhere on our property, and if it wasn't for the dogs, we would probably let him stay. However one encounter with him could portentially result in a blind dog and a huge vet bill so he had to go. For a basically nocturnal animal this little guy was really quite brazen and Sunday afternoon he was wanderin around the yard without a care in the world. Darrell got a big cardboard box and a long 1x3 and headed outside. I put the box down on the ground and backed away like big wuss, while he used the long board to guide the porcupine into the box. We popped a couple carrots in there with him and Darrell drove him out to the middle of nowhere, with no houses for miles, and he now has a nice new residence with some wild Apple trees around, where he won't encounter cars, people, or our dogs. Our dogs can now go outside without us having to worry as much

Sunday night I started making myself a bathrobe out of the artic fleece I bought this time last year. I'm most of the way done and only have the left arm, closing the sides, and hemming left to do.

How to Spoil a Perfectly Good Day.

First off the weekend was a lot of fun. I got my painting all finished off, varithaned, boxed up and shipped away. I also got started on the two little sewing projects that I have for my Nephews. Saturday night we went out to the SJTC christmas party at the Summerset with the Bonds. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be in the e-mail but was really fun regardless. There was another group there having a Christmas party as well, so it felt basically like Karaoke Night at the Summerset pub, which it basically was. It was really nice to see everyone and sing a couple songs though.

The week so far has moved along very slowly. It seems like it should be over already but it isn't. I have 10 more doors to open on my choclate calendar before the big C. I'm still working on my sewing projects and really only just got down to cutting and sewing last night.... the weekend was basically prewashing and ironing. I didn't buy enough piping so I had to stop into Fabricville on the way to work.

So how do you spoil a perfectly good day? Turns out I had to kill some time because Darrell was recording a Voice over, so I popped into Michaels to see if they had any Batman buttons that I could use on Cole's Jammies, but they didn't so I headed to the Dreaded Walmart. Stepping into Walmart is enough to ruin any day, but try doing it in December in the morning... it's hell. I honestly hate going to Malmart for anything to tell the truth and we absolutely avoid the place the like the plague if it can be helped, but they are one of the only other places that might have had batman buttons so I had no choice. The worst part of the search was the fact that the sewing section is at the very back of the store.... so you have to navigate your way through all the completely clueless people wandering around looking for nothing imparticular. It shouldn't be that hard, since Walmart has big huge isles, except they piles islands of crap up in them so you can only get around them single file... heaven help you is someone decides to stop and chat with someone coming the other way. I could rant about how much I hate the place for hours, but suffice to say I hate the place and going there for any reason is like stepping into hell. They didn't have what I was looking for either so I soothed my pain at Futureshop by buying the Christopher Reeves Superman Collection DVD box set.

Friday December 8, 2006

Appetizer
Which language would you like to learn and why?
French. I live in a bilingual country and many of the projects we do have to be translated into french. It would make my life a lot easier if I had more than just a vague idea about what was being said.

Soup
What's the funniest thing you've heard or read so far this week?
I saw a picture on Garth Turner's website of Stephen Harper and George Bush, but it is made from the Brokeback Mountain Movie poster. I read a couple jokes in my e-mail that made me laugh, and I heard people on the radio debating the same sex marriage law again.... I find that funny because I'm stunned by the sheer ignorance of some people and the way they can wrap up discrimination and intollerance in a pretty little package and call it "Family Vallues".

Salad
Which movie was so bad you couldn't watch the whole thing?
Black Hawk Down. It sucked hard.

Main Course
If there were a holiday in your honor that didn't use your actual name, what would the day be called?
I don't know what it would be called but there would be lots of vodka.

Dessert
Name one movie which is coming out soon that you would like to see.
The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will & Jaden Smith. It's based on a true story and looks like a really good movie.

Raining

It's raining and 7 degrees...so bye bye snow. (For now)
There are seventeen unopened doors on my chocolate calendar until the big C.
Still so much to do and very little time to do it if I want to get stuff in the mail on time.

Snow & Ice

So the rain in the morning quickly changed back to snow and continued all day long and just like that it was winter in New Brunswick. It suddenly got quite cold to go with it. To be honest I really love the first snow fall, it makes everything so bright and clean looking. In fact I love the first snowfall of winter almost as much as I love the last snowfall of winter... now if we could just work that global warming thing into making them a little closer together that would be awsome.

Snow?!

Well it had to happen to us eventually. Thankfully the snow fall last night was no where near as bad as the western side of the country, and on the bright side everything looks so pretty with a nice blanket of snow on it. It's raining now so the snow is pretty much gone, but it was kind of nice to wake up to it.

The weekend was good and it started a day early. I didn't end up going into work on Friday although I had planned to. Darrell had a doctors appointment later in the morning Friday so he went in on his own to that and then stopped by the office to work on a DVD project that has been giving him grief. By the time he got home it was too late for me to turn around and head in so I didn't. Instead I spent an hour on my eliptical trainer (I can sing most of the Cabaret soundtrack while working out now although still a little breathlessly near the end) then puttered around.

Saturday I basically painted, and not much else. I got Seth's painting finished completely by the end of the day.



The photo is before a few little finishing touches, erasing pencil lines, and varithane, but it gives you the idea. Once the Varithane was on it the colour popped a lot more, but the shine reflects the flash on the camera. The painting contains all his information; the calendar has his birthdate, the clock has the time, Daisy Duck is sitting on a scale that has his weight, The Blocks spell out his name on the fronts and on top they have his middle and last initial.

Sunday I went to work on the painting I'm doing for my cousin and got most of it blocked out. I can probably finish in one more sitting.