Drew’s truck, while running fine, had seen better days. The last time he went to Kandahar, his truck sat untouched in the garage for months. Since I have my own baby truck, I didn’t need another one. We decided not to have a repeat of the “hurry up and wait” experience for the truck this time. And we also decide that there was no point in trading in his old truck to buy a new one before he left. Then we’d just be trading one vehicle stranded in a garage for another.

Enter the government’s “retire your ride” program.

Drew’s truck is old enough that it qualified for him to give the truck to the gov’t in exchange for money ($300) or a year of transit passes.

Parking costs a minor fortune in downtown Edmonton so I’ve been taking public transit to work since I started working for the province. Monthly bus passes cost $85 each month. Getting a year’s worth of bus passes for free saves us a good chunk of change that we can put towards our vacation in February 2011.

The gov’t is trying to get old clunkers off the road and this program was a great way for us to deal with our extra truck problem. It can take a while between registering your vehicle & having it picked up (about 4 weeks in our case) so you’ll need a place to park it while you wait. You’ll get a call for the car to be picked up by a towing contractor and it’s sent off to be crushed. Shortly after pick-up (less than 30 minutes for us) you’ll receive a call to confirm the “reward” option you’ve selected (cash or transit pass) and your mailing address. If you choose transit, a few days later you’ll get a letter in the mail that you take to the city transit office each month to redeem your free pass. The letter is good for one year but must be used consecutively.

If you’ve got a vehicle from 1995 or earlier and don’t know what to do with it, perhaps you should consider throwing a happy retirement party for your vehicle as well.

Anyone who has spent five minutes reading this blog knows I’m a military wife with a spouse currently serving in Afghanistan. This isn’t his first tour.

When he was in KAF last year I was glued to news sites and tv channels. I wanted to know exactly what was going on over there at all times. I couldn’t get enough information and the media outlets were happy to oblige.

This tour is different. I’m not stalking news sites. And the online media isn’t providing as much information (or at least not as headline news) anymore. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

Instead of panic and worry at every little thing I read or hear – bad news blaring across the headlines – I’m often learning about events after the fact through check-in calls with hubs. This lower stress level is really making a difference. Here’s hoping it continues for the next 9 1/2 months…

In February I joined Curves to increase my activity level. It seemed like a good idea at the time. An all girl “gym” that used resistence based machines for exercise. It’s a very basic set-up. I think it’s a decent service for people who are brand new to exercise, uncertain about how to go about increasing activity levels, or uncomfortable with the idea of a co-ed gym.

I’ve outgrown Curves a lot faster than I anticipated. Although, if I’m really honest with myself, I may have outgrown Curves long before I stepped foot in their nearby location.

Yesterday I came to my senses. I canceled my Curves membership and purchased a pass to the City of Edmonton Rec Centres. Now I have access to far more than limited resistance weight machines. At city facilities I’ll have access to free weights, indoor running tracks, pools, ice rinks, classes & more. There are multiple free swims a day and participation in drop-in classes is free. Unless I want to hire a personal trainer or take a specialized or limited participation (size) class, I won’t have to pay any extra fees.

Most importantly, the city’s rec facilities pass costs about $15 less a month than Curves did.

There are facilities all over the city and, unlike Curves, I don’t need special passes pre-arranged in advance to drop in at any one of them (with the exception of Terwilligar – but let’s be honest, I don’t even know what part of town that is). Not all facilities have the same services or schedules but it’s easy to look them up in the guide book or online.

For the moment I’ll need to drive about town to use the nearest gym. The facilities closest to me (3) are an extra 5-10 minute drive when compared to the nearest Curves. However, the city is in the process of building a big new facility within walking distance from my home (LRT distance in winter – far too cold to walk) which is slated to open in Winter 2011.

I don’t know why I was so hesitant to do this before. Very glad I’ve taken this next step. Onward and downward – on the weight scales – we go!

I’m in need of a new point and shoot camera. Hubs broke mine last year when he was on tour. We bought a replacement camera while on vacation last summer but hubs has taken it with him on his current tour.

While he did leave his fancy schmantzy DSLR camera behind, I don’t have the foggiest idea how to use it. More importantly, I don’t want to be dragging around a backpack filled with lenses, filters, and a bazillion other odds and ends that I don’t know the names of.

What I want is a digital camera that will be smart enough to take a decent picture no matter how poor the photographer’s “eye”. I need a camera that can compensate for my wobbly hands, poor sight, and fits in my pocket or purse.

I don’t want a large body camera with a fixed lense. If I’m going to get something that big then I might as well sign up for a photography course and lug around hubs giant bag o’ camera equipment.

Preferably my new camera will have some sort of facial or smile recognition, a sports feature that would allow me to take pics at football games, a decent zoom (6-10x would be nice) and the ability to film short movies.

So peanut gallery, time to chime in with recommendations (make & model please) so I can start comparing cameras and make a decision. What do you use? What are it’s good points? What’s it’s bad points? What are your favourite features & which features do you wish your camera had?

Thanks.

Looks like there’s a chance my mum & sister may be heading west to spend Christmas with me. Since I’m about to get crazy busy with school again soon I figure I better spend the next few weeks going through the spare room, kitchen, office & basement great room to cull things that we haven’t used in years. I figure I can spend a few hours each weekend until my birthday clearing out odds and ends and then find a way to dispose of them (likely Goodwill or Sally Ann). Won’t promise that the house will be spotless in time for their arrival but should hopefully be able to find the sparr bed, some empty dresser drawers, and (most importantly) be able to move around a bit in my office.