the screaming pages

It’s a few weeks until exams and only a few short weeks after that before I begin my next semester. Since I’ve started getting the standard “what do you want for Christmas” emails and phone calls from friends and family, I’m posting my wish list early this year.

1. Gift certificates from Queen’s University Bookstore – so I can buy textbooks for my courses next semester
2. Gift certificates from Chapters.ca – so I can buy textbooks for my courses next semester
3. Gift certificates from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com – so I can buy textbooks for my courses next semester (do you see a trend here?)
4. Tic Tac Silvers – I can’t buy them in Canada and haven’t yet found a supplier who will ship here. Perhaps one of my lovely US based friends or family can see their way to sending me some *hint hint*
5. iTunes gift cards so I can load my iPod with things worth listening to while I’m writing papers or developing eLearning course sites.
6. I’m part of the problem and I bring nothing to the table t-shirts from T-Shirt Hell. They’ve changed the style/colours in the past year, but beggars can’t be choosers. Warning, if you’re easily offended DON’T go to this site. The shirts are damn funny though!
7. Charitable donations to any cause you feel appropriate. I’m always willing to forego gifts if you donate the money to a good cause. I recommend the Canadian Cancer Society, World Vision’s Alternate Gifts and Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors without Borders.

That’s it. Begging all done for the year. Now, how do I get the hubby to read (and remember) the list this year?

I know. It’s been a while. If the few nasty-grams I got via email are anything to go by, I actually have a few readers left who miss my writing *grin*

Yesterday was a good day all around. I received my PLAR assessment from school and (pending passing my current course) I’m to receive 12 transfer credits from previous university classes to count towards the current degree. Yippee! Of course, instead of working on the paper that’s due on Monday, I’m blogging. So, perhaps I shouldn’t count my chickens before they’re hatched…

Last night we headed out to see the Leafs play the Oilers in pre-season action. If last night’s game was anything to go by, I predict a short and disappointing season for the Oil. Sure, they won in overtime, but the 3rd period goalie was lucky they managed to get out alive. It seems that stick handling is still a challenge for the Oil. Add to that some unnecessary showboating instead of the requisite teamwork and it made for a pretty disappointing game.

On the other hand the starting goalie, Mathieu Garon, was a pleasant surprise and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him during the upcoming season.

I’m not a hockey player *shame on me* but there’s a few pieces of advice I can’t help but share with my beloved Oil:

• See those hard black things with laces on them? They’re called skates. You put your feet in the end with the hole and the shiney metal bit connects with the ice. Try it sometime…
• And that black hard rubber round thingy is called a puck. Use the wooden (or composite) thingy – otherwise known as a stick – to shove it around the ice.
• Speaking of the puck, if you don’t chase it you’ll never catch it.
• If you don’t shoot the puck you’ll never score.
• Pass the puck to the guys wearing the same colour jersey as yourself. It’s one thing to lose the puck on the boards of have it swiped from you. It’s another thing entirely to PASS the puck to members of the opposing team!
• Records are great and always meant to be broken. However, there’s no need to set (or break) the record for having the most penalty minutes in a game. Try keeping all the players on the ice and see how many times the puck ends up in the net.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope they iron out the bugs. I’d love another cup run in my backyard.

Technorati Tags: hockey, edmonton, oilers, university

The boy is gone. We put him on a bus from Edmonton to Calgary this evening. I’ve discovered I’m not cut out to be a mom of a teenager. Thank goodness I’m only an aunt!

There’s a new roof is on and looks great. We let our contractor (neighbour) pick the shingle colour since we can’t see the roof from out back yard and he can. He picked a nice cedar blend and when you’re out in the alley the roof looks awesome.

The draft for my eLearning program is completed and I’m submitting it for review a day early (tomorrow instead of the 14th). I’m pretty pleased with it and hope the committee will be as well.

All in all, it was a great weekend.

Technorati Tags: weekend, update, roof, nephew

This week we’ve been playing host to our 17 year old “nephew” from Winnipeg. In a short span of time I’ve quickly learned that teenage boys spend as much (if not more) time on the phone as girls, the “me first” attitude drives me bonkers, and I’d never survive prolonged exposure to teens.

Of course, my views are somewhat coloured by the fact that I’m ensconced in my office working on my contract development work and only tend to see the boy when he comes to whine or complain about something.

Today he’s supposed to be helping the guys with general grunt work as they re-roof our house but every time I go outside to see if anyone needs anything he’s sitting down looking miserable. He certainly didn’t enjoy being asked by Drew to pick up the nails and old shingle spill-over that’s appeared in the backyard after lunch. Granted, it could be worse (‘cept, he doesn’t seem to see it that way). He could have been ripping shingles off the roof, lugging bundles of shingles up the ladder, installing the shingles, or hauling away the old shingles into the bin in the alley…

On Friday, we temporarily added 8 new feet to our household. We’re babysitting Snuggles and Rascal (don’t let the names fool you) while our friends are on vacation. Luckily for us, these two pooches are a bit smaller than mine, so if a war breaks out, they’ll probably end up doing about equal damage to each other. There’s no real unfair advantage.

Last night we found ourselves nearly shoved out of bed when 3 dogs hopped in. We’ve gotten used to Hypnos sleeping at our feet over the years, but Snuggles and Rascal seem to be more of a “middle to top” of the bed group of dogs. Hypnos wasn’t the least impressed and made friends with a green-eyed monster. We’re lucky that Hypnos managed to control his jealousy until we woke up!

Fenris, of course, isn’t the slightest bit interested in sleeping on a human bed when she’s got a perfectly good dog bed on the floor and wasn’t the least bit interested in the drama playing out above her.

As for my work contract, I’ve gotten sign-off on my template so the contract is 25% complete. *yippee*

I suffered a slight set-back on Friday when I was testing the content in a variety of browsers and discovered that IE 6 was completely messing up the formatting from my CSS. A bazillion hours of tweaking and testing later I’ve got it all fixed and have been slaving away today trying to get back on track. The draft is due to the review committee on Monday and I think I’m in good shape. I had 3 modules to complete between Friday and Sunday and have managed to finish up 1.5 of them. The day is still young and I still have all day tomorrow to work on it. I’m feeling pretty confident that it will all come together in time.

Technorati Tags: dogs, babysitting, teenage, boys, roofing, work

Warning: Ewwee, gross content below.

I’ve been living with the shame all weekend – and thus avoiding my computer and the urge to blog. I was gardening again this weekend. Umm…ok…that’s not the really shameful part.

I dropped my cell phone in water.

Yeah, umm *sigh* well, it’s truth by omission…

When I was a kid I was a huge fan of Stephen King and IT was the creepiest book I’d ever read. Perhaps it was because I already suffered from coulrophobia (and linking to this wiki entry with a picture of Pennywise was a struggle). During my teen watch every slasher and horror flick I could get my hands on phase, I caught the film version of IT. Since then, I’ve never forgotten the sound of Tim Curry‘s voice uttering the line They ALL float down here. When you’re down here with us, you’ll float too!

Cell phones don’t float. And they don’t work once their circuit boards have been fried by water.

I know – I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.

I bought these great shorts with huge side pockets and velcro closures. They’re comfy and I can wear them at work. The downside to them is that the pockets at the front are super shallow. My cell was in them when I had to run to the little girls room. You can fill-in-the-blanks on the rest.

Needless to say, my cell was fried and I was NOT in the mood to go rescue it. Sunday found me wandering aimlessly amongst the cell phone vendors attempting to pick out a new phone that I could afford and had some (if not all) of the features of my old phone. While the mission was accomplished, my new phone doesn’t have expandable memory or a speaker phone (I miss them already) and I no longer have the blackmail photo of the hubby singing karaoke as my wallpaper.

I do have a fast type keyboard on the number pad for the massive numbers of text messages I tend to send. Of course, before I can send texts, I need to rebuild my contact list.

Technorati Tags: stephen king, coulrophobia, pennywise,cell phone, water