Celebrating Another Year

Well, another year older, another year...wiser? Not sure about that one, but last week was the anniversary of my birth. Yes, it was 32 years ago that I was born. For some reason, birthdays are still a big deal to me. So, spreading out the celebrations for over a week was A-OK with me!

The weekend before, I did a little road trip to Lambton County :D I went to visit my Aunt Peggy, she's just so adorable. Then I went on to Petrolia. John & Karen and the kids came over to the Berrys and we had pizza and birthday cake! It was so yummy...Connie made a homemade chocolate/lemon layer cake. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera was dead so I didn't get any photos. I was so disappointed.

After supper with the family, I ventured on to Grammie's house. She was looking forward to having some company and had the tea on when I got there. My cousin Josh came after work and decided to stay over too. So, we had an impromptu slumber party. Grammie (who is quite the night hawk) and I stayed up talking until 1:30am! She's a great listener and I always like hearing her stories from the past. We had to put the clocks ahead that night, so the next morning, we were all still in bed when the phone rang at 11am!!

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Karla Ann in Sarnia. We played Scrabble (a rare occurance...I won!) and watched some old videos from highschool. Oh, the memories!





The next weekend Jason & I went to see Art Garfunkel in Toronto. (I think I'll save the details for another post) We also went to the Warhol exhibit at the Waterloo Children's Museum. What a great place! The London Children's Museum pales in comparison. PLUS they had original Warhol pieces on display and hands-on silk screening. It was a fun afternoon.





On my actual birthday, Karla Ann came to London and brought a picnic! It was such great weather that we sat in Victoria Park in shirt sleeves to enjoy it. Later on, I went to Jo-Anne & Nick's for a homemade dinner and then finished off the day at Starbucks with Sue.

Thanks to all my friends and family for making me feel so loved!

Left Behind

There is a movie out there, starring Kirk Cameron, called "Left Behind". The plot focuses on a guy in a post-apocalyptic world. It then shows all the hardships he endures as one of the ones left behind. This week, I'm feeling a connection this character. After all the decisions at work about who will be staying and leaving, I will be losing some of my favourite co-workers and I will be left in an empty newsroom. :(



DUANE DEINUM (LOOSE CANNON)I've always told Duane he is like my brother. Not that he is like my brother John, but he is like a brother to me. He's helped dig my car out of a snowbank, move a bed into my upper-level apartment, take a beetle for a test drive, even take a mouse out of mouse trap for me! I have a lot of respect for Duane as a person and have loved working with him. I value his opinion on things in all areas of life and we've had some really good talks. Duane loves race cars (I'm not sure if it's Nascar or stock car or what) and when I went to Monte Carlo right before the Grand Prix, he was flipping out! (well, as much as Duane can flip) ha ha...I remember how excited I was the day before I left for that trip and Duane had to put up with my spazziness that day! He was also cooperative when I was trying to get "action" shots on my new camera. Duane and his wife Debby have been such great friends and I look forward to lots more good times.


MURRAY BARNETT
For the past 10 years, Murray has been my go-to guy. We first met during my internship in Creative Services. He took me out on a shoot and then we got to go for lunch at East Side Mario's. We just clicked after discovering we both grew up on a farm, our moms are nurses, and he just seemed like part of the family. Murray has been there for me when my car wouldn't start - he'd give me a boost, when I needed something hung on the wall - he'd bring his tool belt, when I bought a standard car and didn't know how to drive it - he came with me to pick it up and then spent the afternoon teaching me how to shift. We've discussed politics, religion, relationships, Oprah, country music, musicals, family, careers, history, and pretty much everything in between. He's always got the dish and when he doesn't, he'll just make up something that sounds good :) There is no other like Murray (Beefy Forearms) Barnett and I will miss him tremendously.
TREVOR DIXON (AKA: JOEY)
Trevor started at the station shortly after I did. He was a long-haired hippy type that got along with everybody. Soon after, we started working the early morning shift together. If there's anything that bonds people together, it's starting your day at an ungodly hour! We would go to matinee movies (who else was available to see a movie in the afternoon?) and out for breakfast with the morning crew. I even convinced Trevor to come to our Board Game Nights. I think he was surprised that he actually had fun! ha ha. I set him up with his first email account and we made the trek to Cedar Point & The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Randy & Janice Meyer. I remember making a pact with Trevor a LONG time ago that I would watch Star Wars if he would watch The Sound of Music. As I recall, I held up my end of the bargain, but he never did watch Maria & The Captain. Trevor, I have 3 words for you: ONION RINGS...GASP!!



BOB SMITH
To me, Bob Smith is a real-live renaissance man. Not only is he a fantastic news anchor, but also a great line-up producer, farm-markets reporter and knows a plethora of information on anything you can think of. We share a love of The Beatles and both times I saw Paul McCartney, Bob was at the same concert. We had some great times working together on the noon news. One of my favourite shows was the Christmas Carol call-in. It seemed like everything went crazy with cameos of Sarah putting on her scarf, John Lees walking into the camera and John Wilson interrupting Bob & Peter while they were on the air! It was hilarious. I also remember Bob sticking up for me & my creativity when my tickle trunk was on air and a caller was complaining that there wasn't enough colour on it! Ha ha...Bob was quick to point out that it was FULL of colour! I shall miss you Hog-Boy, from Miss Piggy :)

JIM CRICHTON
Jim started anchoring the Windsor newscast from our London studio. It was during this time that I got the pleasure of working with him. I've never met such a hard-core newsie!! Jim takes his job very seriously but we also talked a lot about the 60's, cars and music (especially The Beatles) He dubbed me an "old soul" and I think there's something to that.



CHRIS PARR
Chris & I share a passion for music and have had lots of discussions about the best way to get an autograph :) I remember a LONG time ago, we were actually compiling a music trivia game! (Chris, maybe we should market that!) Chris has helped me out on numerous projects, shared his expertise and has been a great guy to work with.

Buzz Words

WORDS I'M TIRED OF HEARING THIS WEEK:

layoff
bumping
package
carriage-fee
CRTC
cut
slash
severence
cancelled
grave
revenue
broken model

Layoffs

In case you have heard or seen something in the media today, I thought I should fill you in on what's happening at work. First off, my job is safe for now but as you can imagine, a lot of my friends have lost their jobs and that is very sad.

Last week we were told that CTV was not applying to renew the licence on 2 of the 3 stations run out of our building. This signaled troubled times ahead. However, for 6 days, we didn't know how this would affect us. Today, we found out.

Effective today, our morning show was cancelled. Anyone who works directly for the morning show is laid off immediately. This includes my friend Chris who has worked here for about 20 years and one of my favourite co-workers Bob Smith...30 years! In addition to that, when Windsor & Wingham go off the air in August, more will be affected. This will include my friends Trevor, Duane & Murray. In total, 48 people were affected today.

Daily Photo Project (February)

Here is the February edition of the 2009 Daily Photo Project.

Daily Photo Project (January)

My project for 2009 is to take a daily photograph of myself for an entire year. This idea transpired and morphed from a couple of different sources. A few months ago, I heard a feature on CBC radio's "spark". They introduced us to a man that took a daily polaroid photograph for 18 years. http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/ They were not necessarily photos of himself, but there was one for each day and there were no "do-overs". Years after he passed away, a friend of his scanned them all and posted them online. I was intrigued by this.

Part of my idea also came from reading AJ Jacobs book The Year of Living Biblically. http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb In the book, he tries to follow every rule in the Bible, literally. Part of this includes him not trimming his facial hair, so he had a photo layout showing the change in his beard each month. This inspired me.

So, on New Years Eve, I decided I would use the built-in camera in my computer to take a daily photograph of myself. I would do no do-overs and I wouldn't get upset if I missed a day because, let's face it...that's going to be a lot of photos! Missing a day here and there won't hurt :D

So, here is the month of January!

Clouds in my Coffee

I started drinking coffee early. While visiting my aunt Peggy, I would join the adults for coffee as early as I can remember. (I'm guessing about 10 or 11 years old) At that time, I just put whatever my parents put in their coffee, so for most of my life, I've taken my coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars. It makes it easy at Tim Horton's ...double double. It has a nice ring to it :D

Recently, Jason & I were discussing coffee and how it sounds really cool when you say "I'll have a coffee...black." I really didn't think I'd enjoy black coffee, but decided I was going to start weaning myself down to black.

I started by ordering "regular" - 1 cream, 1 sugar. But, I found it wasn't creamy enough. However, I figured I could do without the sugar. So, I've been taking my coffee with double cream and NO sugar. I think eventually I will reduce the cream, but for now, that is my progress.

Janice the Hairstylist

Several years ago, when my company announced a major layoff, my mind got to wondering what I would do, if I were a part of it? What new path would I like to take? One of the ideas I had was to be a hair stylist. This may not seem like much of a goal, but I love getting my hair done and that great feeling when you've got a new look. I think it would be fun to give people that feeling. I am not retraining for this but it has been in the back of my mind for a while.

So, imagine how I felt when Jason let me cut his hair last week!

Quite a while ago, he got a bad haircut at a salon and since he was going to be getting it "fixed" anyway, he asked if I'd like to have a go. I was really nervous and kinda excited! I started with scissors but didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. He gingerly asked if I'd like to use the clippers. So, I gave them a go, but I still felt like I wasn't cutting enough hair. (I was being very cautious) I complained that the clippers weren't cutting enough and would like a different guard for them. Turns out, he only had the one. So, he suggested if I was REALLY careful, I could remove the guard. But I'd have to be really, really careful as it's really easy to make a goof this way. (just ask my friend Elvin whose wife took a bald swipe up the middle of his head!!) Everything was going along fine until I accidentally made a "notch" in the middle of the back of his head. A small "oops" escaped from my lips and that was the end of my haircut. He went to a proper stylist the next day and had it fixed.

I thought that was the end of my career until last weekend. Jason had "haircut" on his list of things to do on Saturday and I have to admit, it was getting a little shaggy. After going to see a movie on Saturday, we tried 2 different places, but we were too late. They were closed for the day. He assured me it was ok and he'd just get one next week.

On Sunday I had dinner at my sister's house and on the way home, I got a text "will you cut my hair?" Hmmm, really? Was he serious? He was willing to give me another chance? This time I was pretty impressed with the results. I didn't touch the front, but I trimmed up the back quite nicely - layers and everything! It is now Friday and he hasn't gone to get it "fixed" and hasn't had any crazy looks this week, so that's good. I will try and get some photos to post on here. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any of the actual event, but will try to get a before/after comparison :)

Sarah's Place

My friend Sarah just took the plunge into home ownership! Wow...congrats, Sarah! Last weekend I went to check out her new place. I felt like I was entering a swanky hotel when I got there. Her condo is in a brand new building and everything is no nice and new and modern! There's even a pool, hot tub and sauna. We didn't use them this time, but I'm totally going back for a weekend and make use of that feature. :) Here are a few pix of Sarah & her place.

Restaurant Poetry

a recent trip to Red Lobster inspired some poetry...

what shall we order?
shrimp, scallops and fish, oh my!
the scent of lemons

Red Lobster date night
shrimp, scallops and king crab legs
wow! a surprising delight

Christmas Wrap Up

It's hard to believe but it's already into the second week of 2009! The new year always comes up so fast, just being a week after Christmas. I've been trying to write this blog post for the past week and am altering out all the "dated" bits. One of my New Years "plans" (not using resolution) is to try to blog more often. So, the Christmas lowdown....



Jason & I celebrated early with lots of holiday munchies, Christmas movies (Elf and my favourite, Christmas Vacation) and of course, presents! I got a new camera - which I'm still trying to figure out! It's a digital SLR so I'm taking a class at Henry's today and hopefully will be posting some cool shots on here.







On the 23rd I headed over to Sue's for our (now) annual tradition of me helping her wrap gifts :) She hates wrapping and I love it. Works out well! In the evening we had our office potluck. It's always a good time with yummy food and a nice time for co-workers to just chill out for the night.



I spent Christmas Eve with my sister Jo-Anne & her family. Liam was in bed when I got there but Jesse was still up and pretty excited! Nick lit a fire in the fireplace and we had some munchies while we opened our stockings. I stayed the night there and woke up (EARLY!!) Christmas morning to 2 excited little boys. After opening gifts there, I headed out to the farm.









Once everyone gets together it gets a little crazy, but fun. Mom had an awesome dinner for us and then more gift unwrapping! I took my wii with me so it was fun for adults & kids to play together.









I stayed for a couple of days at Mom & Dad's and got to see Amy & Pat along with Elliott and brand new Milo, Karla Ann & Beck and Carla Raes, a trip to Tim Horton's with Grammie and a really nice lunch of salmon sandwiches with Aunt Peggy.

Although, I have to admit, it was nice to get home to my own bed after nearly a week of not!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This weekend my apartment took on a decidedly Christmas feel. The jigsaw puzzle that is my storage closet was dismantled one box at a time until we retrieved the tree and all the ornaments. I thought that was tough... Once we brought everything into my apartment, we had to re-arrange furniture several times before finding a way that everything would fit, somewhat normally. It was tricky but I think I'm happy with the results.

It's always fun putting up the tree and seems to "officially" start the Christmas season. I bought candy cane eggnog (still deciding if I like it) and had a chocolate fondue to help set the mood. After de-tangling the lights and carefully stretching out a couple of extension cords, we had lights.

An artificial tree with only lights looks a little pathetic, but as the ornaments slowly made their way onto the tree, it started to look pretty good! I just bought some new ornaments at Sam's Club a few weeks ago and I really like them. At the same time we were decorating, we were figuring out my new camera and its features. Check out the panoramic shot I did this morning. You take 3 photos in a row and it combines them! So cool.

So, the tree is up, the stockings are hung (I love that I have a "fireplace") and some presents are under the tree. Lookin' good!

Flowers

Look what I got this week! Both from my sweetie.

The Windy City

My friend Sue & I were planning on renting a cottage for a weekend in October. Sue had been there last year with a friend and it was a nice getaway during a beautiful time of year. I thought it sounded like a good idea; catch up on some reading, talk, laugh, etc. When those plans fell through (due to cottage conflict) we changed our plans to a shopping trip to Detroit. Not quite nature, but we had talked about hitting Somerset Mall and this might be a nice alternative. Somehow, this idea ballooned into a trip to CHICAGO!!! It seems like everyone I've talked to lately had just been to Chicago or is going. So, why not? Taking the train from Port Huron to Chicago is really affordable and we were soon booking our trip!

It was so fun. We had to leave London super early in order to catch our 5:15am train in Port Huron. But, we just picked up a Timmy's and enjoyed the anticipation-filled drive. The Port Huron train station is a bit ghetto to say the least...not even a vending machine! Fortunately we weren't there long before boarding the train. We were able to get a little sleep as well as a lot of laughs on the train. When we finally pulled into the city, it was around noon.

We were just a short walk to the hotel and the sun was shining. What a great day! We were able to check in early and head out to explore the city. But back to the hotel for a moment. It was SO COOL! It was full of retro furniture and very funky. I loved it. And it was so close to everything. We were in the Entertainment District and right next door to a theatre that was hosting "Dirty Dancing".


So, we headed out to do a double decker bus tour of the city. Our tour guide was very entertaining as she explained the sites of the city. At first it was pretty cool but as the afternoon wore on, it got COLD. I was on the top of a double decker bus in the windy city and I was freezing! I couldn't wait for the tour to be over. When we got off the bus we were cold, hungry and had to pee like crazy! Our initial plan was to get deep dish pizza for dinner but since we weren't sure where to go to get it (and needed food intake immediately) we decided to go to a steak house that we passed.

It was the most hilarious dinner ever. We were both SO hungry. It was not your typical steakhouse, you ordered like a cafeteria with a tray and everything. After looking at the menu, I asked Sue what she thought she'd get. I was absolutely shocked when she said the 20 oz steak!! This is a woman that is usually a vegetarian!!! I talked her down and we each got the 10oz steak. I had mine with a side of macaroni & cheese, baked potato (WITH cheese & bacon) and garlic bread. Um, ya...what the heck were we thinking??

The next day we spent shopping on State Street. While walking down the street, I saw someone that I knew was famous but couldn't just place him. I made Sue turn around and we caught a glimpse of him talking on his cell phone. She ID'ed him as being on Spin City (and I later discovered it was Richard Kind) Cool. Famous person spotted in the windy city. We returned to our hotel in time to buy tickets for that night's performance of Dirty Dancing. My friend Jen joined us for the performance, which was a lot of fun. We had a late dinner and a tour of NBC which is where Jen works.









On the Monday, we headed out for an architectural boat tour. Despite the bitterly cold wind and near the end of the tour - rain, it was really cool. We had just enough time to see "the bean" and get our chicago-style pizza. By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked, so we took a cab to the train station for a LONG ride home.