Ahhhhh...Festivus. One night of mayhem with a number of traditions involved.
Our evening began with the classic potluck dinner consisting of a large variety of ethnic foods available for consumption. Some of the favourites were the cabbage rolls, pancakes, greek salad, bologna and ketchup sandwitches, and KFC. There were also some wonderful desserts like swedish berry brownies, chocolate cherry cake, and some wonderful shortbread cookies. MMMM.
The night continued with much merriment as people ate, drank, played guitar hero, and thought of clever things to write on the "Airing of Grievances" banner in the bathroom. I am still amazed at this guitar hero phenomenon. I'm not quite sure I 'get' it. If people spent as much time actually trying to play a REAL guitar instead of trying to beat the 'expert' level, they'd be awesome musicians in REAL life.
The "Airing of Grievances" was read late in the evening to much laughter and joking...we left before the ever popular "Feats of Strength" ensued, however, I'm sure it was a good time as well. We headed home to get some rest before the next two days of craziness begin. Merry Christmas to you. Have a Happy Holiday!
Festivus YES, Bagels NO!
24 December 2007
16 December 2007
R is for "Retrieval"
Retrieval....or Redemption, I suppose. Today I discovered a wonderful thing.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Four days ago, our young puppy, incredibly excited at the
prospect of chasing our cat (and completely unaware of her ever-increasing size), got tangled in a very important cord as she raced across the room. One end of the cord was hooked into my fiance's computer. The other end (ohhhhh, the other end) was attached to our 500GB backup hard drive, sitting on the side table.
Backup hard drive. Containing precisely that. Backups (appproximately 300 GB worth) of everything under the sun that is - was - of any importance to us. Movies, music, school work from the last three years of teaching, university files, and the most devastating of all, 8 years of photo shooting.
Photography is our hobby, and apparently we're quite good. When we realized that the hard drive no longer functioned, I literally almost threw up. Although we had just made a succulent dinner of honey-glazed salmon and salad, I didn't eat a bite that night. I couldn't. I was sick at the thought of all my photos, gone. Lost to the land of broken technology.
We spent hours looking on the internet for ways to fix our problem. There seemed to be only possible solution...sending our precious hard drive to a 'data retrieval' company in Toronto. For the low, low price of $800-1600, they will repair and retrieve whatever they possibly can from our drive. Although they have assured us that their retrieval rates are quite high, I'm still resigned to the fact that all is lost. After all, their success rate is only around 90%. It's still possible they won't be able to get our data back. At least we won't have to pay if they can't fix it.
Nonetheless, I'm praying to the Gods of Technology to return my beloved photos to me.
Back to today. My wonderful experience of 'retrieval'. I bought a new camera this weekend. It's a Pentax Optio W30. It's waterproof and dustproof, which should come in handy during our honeymoon through the desert and Big Sur in March. I was testing it out, and after downloading the pictures onto my computer, I realized that there was another folder present on my 2GB SD card. It was called "Pic Show."
No, I thought. It can't be.
But it was. In this folder was 400 of our best photos from the summer, as well as a few random good shots from the last couple of years. The picture show that we'd put together at the end of August in order to show our parents the highlights of our summer travels through Riding Mountain National Park, Regina, Moose Jaw, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Calgary, Lake Louise, Glacier National Park, Kelowna, and back to Toronto. What a find!
And so....Retrieval. A redemption of sorts. All is not lost. Well, I guess most of the photos still are.
But I guess I should look on the bright side. It's better than nothing, right?
Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
Four days ago, our young puppy, incredibly excited at the
prospect of chasing our cat (and completely unaware of her ever-increasing size), got tangled in a very important cord as she raced across the room. One end of the cord was hooked into my fiance's computer. The other end (ohhhhh, the other end) was attached to our 500GB backup hard drive, sitting on the side table.
Backup hard drive. Containing precisely that. Backups (appproximately 300 GB worth) of everything under the sun that is - was - of any importance to us. Movies, music, school work from the last three years of teaching, university files, and the most devastating of all, 8 years of photo shooting.
Photography is our hobby, and apparently we're quite good. When we realized that the hard drive no longer functioned, I literally almost threw up. Although we had just made a succulent dinner of honey-glazed salmon and salad, I didn't eat a bite that night. I couldn't. I was sick at the thought of all my photos, gone. Lost to the land of broken technology.
We spent hours looking on the internet for ways to fix our problem. There seemed to be only possible solution...sending our precious hard drive to a 'data retrieval' company in Toronto. For the low, low price of $800-1600, they will repair and retrieve whatever they possibly can from our drive. Although they have assured us that their retrieval rates are quite high, I'm still resigned to the fact that all is lost. After all, their success rate is only around 90%. It's still possible they won't be able to get our data back. At least we won't have to pay if they can't fix it.Nonetheless, I'm praying to the Gods of Technology to return my beloved photos to me.
Back to today. My wonderful experience of 'retrieval'. I bought a new camera this weekend. It's a Pentax Optio W30. It's waterproof and dustproof, which should come in handy during our honeymoon through the desert and Big Sur in March. I was testing it out, and after downloading the pictures onto my computer, I realized that there was another folder present on my 2GB SD card. It was called "Pic Show."No, I thought. It can't be.
But it was. In this folder was 400 of our best photos from the summer, as well as a few random good shots from the last couple of years. The picture show that we'd put together at the end of August in order to show our parents the highlights of our summer travels through Riding Mountain National Park, Regina, Moose Jaw, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Calgary, Lake Louise, Glacier National Park, Kelowna, and back to Toronto. What a find!
And so....Retrieval. A redemption of sorts. All is not lost. Well, I guess most of the photos still are.But I guess I should look on the bright side. It's better than nothing, right?
14 December 2007
I is for "Is"
Today I noticed that everyone's favourite social networking site had done a wonderful thing. For months, everyone who has a profile on Facebook has been setting their status to the tone of one single part of speech: the verb "is."
How many times have we all wanted to say something other than "S is...." but were not able to do so? We were bound by the constrictions of that tiny, two letter word. Forced to modify our thoughts so that they made perfect grammatical sense.
Of course, some people chose to defy this word, continuing their thought as if it was not there to turn their otherwise intelligent descriptor into a garbled piece of grammatical nonsense. "J is wants to go to the store."
And no doubt, you scoffed at that person's inability to conform to a predetermined descriptor of what "J is" thinking, doing, feeling, believing.
Well, today a wonderful thing happened. All those people who refused to conform to the standard status of "So and so IS" were validated. Facebook, I assume from the mounting pressure put forth by the group "Petition to Get Rid of 'is' from Facebook Status Update!" (a group boasting upwards of 200 000 members!), has deleted the verb "IS," and thus has freed the general populace of Facebook users to determine for themselves in exactly which tense they would like to describe their being.
Now, if only there was a group called, "Nobody likes anyone who speaks in the third person!"
Because, really, who likes anyone who really talks like that??? How annoying.
However, one unfortunate fact remains.
"S is having a hard time getting used to not using the word IS in her Facebook status."
Out.
How many times have we all wanted to say something other than "S is...." but were not able to do so? We were bound by the constrictions of that tiny, two letter word. Forced to modify our thoughts so that they made perfect grammatical sense.
Of course, some people chose to defy this word, continuing their thought as if it was not there to turn their otherwise intelligent descriptor into a garbled piece of grammatical nonsense. "J is wants to go to the store."
And no doubt, you scoffed at that person's inability to conform to a predetermined descriptor of what "J is" thinking, doing, feeling, believing.
Well, today a wonderful thing happened. All those people who refused to conform to the standard status of "So and so IS" were validated. Facebook, I assume from the mounting pressure put forth by the group "Petition to Get Rid of 'is' from Facebook Status Update!" (a group boasting upwards of 200 000 members!), has deleted the verb "IS," and thus has freed the general populace of Facebook users to determine for themselves in exactly which tense they would like to describe their being.
Now, if only there was a group called, "Nobody likes anyone who speaks in the third person!"
Because, really, who likes anyone who really talks like that??? How annoying.
However, one unfortunate fact remains.
"S is having a hard time getting used to not using the word IS in her Facebook status."
Out.
13 December 2007
H is for Holidays
Sooo...it's almost Christmas. How do you feel about it? You might be excited (or sad, for that matter) for any number of reasons: family, friends, good food, drinks, social events, presents, Santa Claus....personally, it's Santa that does it for me. :-P
I love seeing the expressions of joy on little kids faces (and big kids too) as the season unfolds. Like most children, Christmas used to be my favourite time of year. The minute the malls and stores would put up their Christmas decorations and start piping festive tunes through the speakers, my body would undergo a fantastic change. My usually negative feelings about the annoyance of snow would be taken over by thoughts of cold, crisp holiday nights spent with friends and family. Christmas wasn't just a one or two day celebration, but a wonderful month long SEASON.
Perhaps the single most disappointing moment of the year was midnight on Christmas Day's night, when, without fail, every single radio station suddenly reverted back to Top 40 hits and 'regularly scheduled programming.' It never failed to produce a feeling of deep sorrow in my soul at the 'end' of my favourite time of year.
Although I still find that moment particularly depressing in my adult life (Am I an adult now? Wow.), Christmas is no longer the lengthy 'season' of years past. Christmas has become something much different, and unfortunately, something much less enjoyable. Don't get me wrong. I love the holidays for a number of reasons. I have the opportunity to spend time with many of my family members that I usually only see once or twice a year (if that). I get to see my wonderful parents and brother for at least a few days each. There is usually at least one, if not a number of parties which allow me to reconnect with friends that I miss dearly all year long.
But there are a number of things that I could do without. Traveling close to 4000 kilometres in 14 days. Christmas shopping on the two days before Christmas because they are the only two days that I have once school lets out for the holidays. Christmas shopping, period! I won't start on the absurdities of Christmas consumer culture. Buying and Getting things I or others don't need for the sake of buying a present. It's a bizarre thing, where a society can expend so much of it's effort on the material and commercial aspects of the Christmas holidays when there are so many who are suffering elsewhere. I'd much rather forgo the Christmas 'presents' and simply spend time with those that I love. I'd love to see a 'buy-nothing Christmas.'
And last, but most certainly not least...attempting to see everyone I've ever known in both Thunder Bay and Toronto during my approximately seven-day-long stay in each city.
Christmas often ends up being a whirlwind experience where I return to my home on the reserve physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and broke.
On the brighter side, I usually do have a few nice things to show for it.
Basically, the point is not that I have come to dislike Christmas as I've gotten older...it's just that as I've gotten older, the joy that I find in this once-magnificent holiday seems to be confined to a shorter and shorter time span. And I yearn for the days when life was simpler, and I was able to find the Christmas spirit throughout the entire month, as opposed to a mere week.
I love seeing the expressions of joy on little kids faces (and big kids too) as the season unfolds. Like most children, Christmas used to be my favourite time of year. The minute the malls and stores would put up their Christmas decorations and start piping festive tunes through the speakers, my body would undergo a fantastic change. My usually negative feelings about the annoyance of snow would be taken over by thoughts of cold, crisp holiday nights spent with friends and family. Christmas wasn't just a one or two day celebration, but a wonderful month long SEASON.
Perhaps the single most disappointing moment of the year was midnight on Christmas Day's night, when, without fail, every single radio station suddenly reverted back to Top 40 hits and 'regularly scheduled programming.' It never failed to produce a feeling of deep sorrow in my soul at the 'end' of my favourite time of year.
Although I still find that moment particularly depressing in my adult life (Am I an adult now? Wow.), Christmas is no longer the lengthy 'season' of years past. Christmas has become something much different, and unfortunately, something much less enjoyable. Don't get me wrong. I love the holidays for a number of reasons. I have the opportunity to spend time with many of my family members that I usually only see once or twice a year (if that). I get to see my wonderful parents and brother for at least a few days each. There is usually at least one, if not a number of parties which allow me to reconnect with friends that I miss dearly all year long.
But there are a number of things that I could do without. Traveling close to 4000 kilometres in 14 days. Christmas shopping on the two days before Christmas because they are the only two days that I have once school lets out for the holidays. Christmas shopping, period! I won't start on the absurdities of Christmas consumer culture. Buying and Getting things I or others don't need for the sake of buying a present. It's a bizarre thing, where a society can expend so much of it's effort on the material and commercial aspects of the Christmas holidays when there are so many who are suffering elsewhere. I'd much rather forgo the Christmas 'presents' and simply spend time with those that I love. I'd love to see a 'buy-nothing Christmas.'
And last, but most certainly not least...attempting to see everyone I've ever known in both Thunder Bay and Toronto during my approximately seven-day-long stay in each city.
Christmas often ends up being a whirlwind experience where I return to my home on the reserve physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and broke.
On the brighter side, I usually do have a few nice things to show for it.
Basically, the point is not that I have come to dislike Christmas as I've gotten older...it's just that as I've gotten older, the joy that I find in this once-magnificent holiday seems to be confined to a shorter and shorter time span. And I yearn for the days when life was simpler, and I was able to find the Christmas spirit throughout the entire month, as opposed to a mere week.
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