A Medley of Extemporanea And No, I'm Not Marie of Romania, but thanks for asking

Memory Lane

We usually have CBC Radio 2 on in the background at home (a sign of impending old fogeydom?). Saturday evening, they played a set of jazzy covers of non-jazzy songs, including “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” done by Sophie Milman. It got me and Sweet talking about a website that we both loved back in the day that closed up shop in 2003. Brunching Shuttlecocks made me laugh every week, but alas, it’s gone. They did movie reviews, Flash animation bits, silly things like the “Alanis Morrisette Lyric Generator” (yes, the site was that old…) and my favourite, Ratings. To taste what the Intertubes have lost, here is Brunching’s rating of the ways to leave your lover, as per the song (thank you, Internet Archive, for existing!). Most of the interactive stuff doesn’t work, but I’ve had a nostalgic giggle or two going through the ratings again.

And now, for Dan’s sake: Really, Really Big Tires! I tried to get the Really, Really Big IKEA behind them, but I had to take the shot I could as traffic only stopped for a moment, but you can kind of see it in the background…

 

Things I find hard/Things I find easy

Going to bed early is harder than it seems! I have tried to hit the sack by 10:30pm every night, and only succeeded once. That one time I tossed and turned until midnight so I will not deem that a success. I have woken up early every day, and have had at least an hour to myself each morning. Note that this makes me very tired and cranky. Hopefully the going to bed early bit will kick in soon. I have managed to write and the crankiness has not seeped through, yet. Yet.

I’ve starting walking at lunch, but it has hurt. The temperature dropped this week and I suffered the last two days at -20C. Today in comparison was absolutely balmy.

Wheel of Time, despite its immensity, has engaged me. I have finished 20% of EotW, and I expect to accelerate once I stop working. This might be tempered by a pile of books that have been on my waiting list at the Library that are all suddenly waiting for me at my branch.

Working is hard/easy, because I can see the finish line ahead of me in two weeks  (Aside: I listened to the Sweden/Finland world junior semi-final game on the radio, and smirked every time the play-by-play announcer said that a Swede had crossed the Finnish line).
PS: Dan says I don’t have enough pictures in my posts. Better?
 

End of the Year: Looking Back and Forward

NB: I meant to post this yesterday, but spent most of the day in bed feeling crummy.

So, um, Happy New Year!

2011 was a bit of a schmozzle for the world, but I had a pretty good year. Highlights included Markus, Spring in London, Fun in the Desert and watching Trevor morph into big boy school attending hockey player. I didn’t bike as much as I wanted to, but that’s OK. For a more complete run down, see My Sweet’s blog, as she beat me to it!

I look forward to 2012, as I have decided to form better habits than I now have. Hungry? Instead of reaching for chocolate bars (why do we have chocolate bars?) reach for raw veggies, that sort of thing. So, here are my plans for the year:

• I am taking eight weeks parental leave: January 23rd to March 18
• I am going to EuroCon 2012 (aka SFEraKon 34) in Zagreb April 26-29
• I am going to bike to work every day of the eight weeks I am home alone
• I am taking twelve weeks LIA in the summer (maybe a bit less, haven’t fully decided)
• Four weeks I’ll dedicate to the Adriatic
• Two weeks I’ll dedicate to a super secret plan that I’ll discuss once everything is in place
• I will take part in Hugo voting again this year. I enjoyed the experience last year, and despite not being present at the awards ceremony, I nevertheless felt connected to the process.
• I am going to try to be active every day. At lunch I’ve played CoD:MW for the last year or two, I think instead I’ll take a walk. Those audiobooks won’t listen to themselves, you know!
• I am going to write every day. Back before I went for my B.Eng, I worked in a pharmacy, and I read this article. It stuck with me, but I never put it into practice. Note that I don’t think I’ll stop at exactly 500 words .
• To aid this, I am going to go to bed earlier, so I can wake up before the kids. I have tried to write after everyone is in bed, but that usually puts me starting at 10:30, and I’m too zonked to use a computer other than to refresh Next Band Name.
• In the fall, I want to plant enough apple and/or pear trees to ensure fruit production. I will use this fruit to make my own cider and/or perry (whenever they start actually producing enough fruit to do so).
• And, of course, I’m going to read The Wheel of Time, as previously mentioned. Just as a reminder, look at this!

This is what I would call SOME PILE OF BOOKS! It just doesn’t seem possible, does it? But there you are… you can see for yourself. (I obviously have read Cars and Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scarry just a bit too many times the past year… ).