Names

I've had some interesting student names in the past:

Ulysses

Ezekial

Refugio

and certainly a large number of Jesuses (but that comes with the territory)

I also get the "typical" "odd" names like Lavita, Laquanda, Benessa, Tamika, Tenisha, Chanell, Bettina, and even Griselda, etc. pretty frequently.

But this semester I have a Shennandoah as well, and I think that's pretty damn awesome!

HUH?

What the???
What food product is this advertising?
And also, what the????????????

surreal

I got the Golf back last evening... wow, after not driving it for a month, I had NO IDEA what to do in it!!! It felt weird sitting low and slightly reclined - being able to stretch my legs towards the pedals. It felt weird not bumping up and down constantly. My left leg had no idea what to do. My right hand kept changing gears, which in the automatic is no good... On the other hand it was really nice and quiet inside the Golf - no rattling, whistling or any of that...

And now, here they are, my cars parked side by side.


Totally surreal.

The Golf is longer, the Jeep is taller - but they are both pretty tiny compared with the majority of vehicles around here. I felt like I was a pro parallel parker in the Jeep last week at work - I could squeeze its short little body in some pretty impressive spaces. It's really easy to parallel park when you're sitting up higher!

last weekend

Twas a busy LA family weekend, as they usually are, but fun and full of wine... (as they usually are!)

Amelia had an egg baby to look after for Home-Ec - lucky for her Hazen was a willing babysitter...

Amelia jumping Raffi impressively... she's the only one of us who earned her food!

We had a couple of nice post-riding lunches at the ranch house (which has bizarre decorations on the walls)

How to use chopsticks

We went out for Korean food to "celebrate" the Extreme Chef's birthday. Food was delicious, service was... interesting... and the best part of all was the little paper wrapper that the chopsticks came in. (The chopsticks felt the need to play "wishbone" and split not even remotely close to center, by the way.)

The chopstick wrapper illustrated how to use chopsticks if you have extraneous digits, too few digits, or perhaps a lobster claw, depending on which part of the illustration you are examining. We also weren't sure what we were picking up with the chopsticks: a coin? a paper towel roll?

ohhhh, California

I received this e-mail today.

Subject:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Possible Inclement Weather

Attachments:

Date: January 10, 2007

To: All Bakersfield College and District Office Employees

From: G*** C**********, Associate Chancellor, Educational Services

At the present time, national and local weather forecasters are predicting noticeable amounts of snowfall within the Bakersfield community overnight and on the morning of Friday, January 12, 2007. In order to alleviate some of the potential problems encountered during the 1999 heavy snowfall, administration will evaluate the situation early Friday and issue a decision regarding closure of Bakersfield College and the District Office.

If a decision is made to close Bakersfield College and the District Office, the information will be given to the local media (radio and television) for publication. A notice will also be posted at the Bakersfield College and District websites. In addition to checking these resources before coming to work on Friday, personnel are strongly encouraged to call the telephone numbers below to determine if a snow closure notice exists.

Bakersfield College 395-****
Kern Community College District Office 336-****

If a snow closure is determined at your job site, please do not come to work!

Thank you.

Granted, it has been reaching around freezing at night, however, I highly doubt the likelihood that we could get enough snow to actually last during the day and cause problems. Well, if there were Canadians driving around Bakersfield that is...

Mine!

Gotta remove that license border... or add the letter "a" between "am" and "pain". Note anything on the rearview mirror?

Goodbye Canada, Hello New Year

the girls having xmas dinner in Montreal... breakfast in the new dining room in Barrie

Pearl's penguin appetizers!

lunch with S,J&N (wearing his new sweater!)

baklava. yum.

may as well ring in the new year with colour-coordinated martinis!

the return of Be and Mecky!

BA on Boxing Day

For this year's birthday I finagled an intense drive from Kingston to London (en route to Barrie and via Waterloo) in order to see the show I miss the most since my move... yup, that's right... the BA Baracus Band! YAY! Check out Papa's shirt! Djembe was in top form that night, wowee!


It was fun having the Pembroke St. reunion despite missing one ultra-hyper and integral link to the house dynamic... kilometres...

BEG, Papa and me

Papa, TFF and Jumpmaster

Rather than post all the videos I took that night, I thought I would post one little teaser and provide links to the rest, for those die-hard BA fans who can't get enough of tinny sound and poor in-bar videography from an older digital camera and a person (me) who forgets how to hold the camera...



Fraggle Rock (featuring Duncan for old times sake)
Bette Davis Eyes (short - people started dancing right in front of my camera...)
a Corey Hart tribute (I'd never heard them do this one before!!! fun!)
and Girls (another one I hadn't heard them do before - and also fun!)

xmas knitting...

Now that xmas is past, I can proudly display the MAD knitting skillz I invoked in order to accomplish this year's task of making stuff for people.

simple socks for grandma (my own boring pattern in boring beige ultra-fine merino)

festive socks for mama (Baudelaire from knitty.com)

gloves for papa (Urban Rustic from knitty.com)

sweater for young Nathan belonging to Stephen and Janel (ChildHood from knitty.com)

...and Sheldon the turtle with removable shell for sis (Sheldon from knitty.com)

I knit other things for other people as well that I neglected to photograph - but you get the idea. WHEW!

snow!

I am currently blogging from wireless internet in the LA airport. I have to board my flight in a little under 4 hours and am trying to occupy myself seeing as the chairs in here are arranged in such a way that you cannot lie down. So I will regale you with sleepy babble recounting my last desert adventure of 2006!

This has been a record year for desert roaming - and the Mojave to be sure! On the way out I drove by Tehachapi, as usual, and for the first time saw the range covered in a light dusting of snow - naturally I had to pull over and collect some photographic evidence to show you all.


Bird Nerd accompanied me for this round and we went on an expedition across the marble mountains where I exhibited an extraordinary lack of map-reading proficiency. (Check out that wicked use of the letter "X"!!!)
Luckily I more than made up for it with mad bat-photography skillz. Oh yeah, and mad love from the waitress at Bun Boy who has a slightly over-the-top enthusiasm for seeing my bright (although usually dirty from desert roaming) face appear in her place of work for a burger after a day of playing in rocks.

last hike (clamber) of 2006

Ludlow isn't quite a ghost town yet - it has the advantage of being situated at the junction of old rte66 and I40 just where the 66 detours south - watch for future adventures featuring Ludlow - I have the sneaking suspicion that I'll stay at the motel one night...

why is this banana advertising Pirates of the Caribbean?

looking south from the marble mountains - is that a low-flying plane or what? a super speedy jet scared the crap out of us up on the mountain ridge later on.

this dyke is creating one of my favourite rock formations: stegosaurus rock. check out those excellent basalt stegosaurus spines sticking out of the granite!

can you see the truck way down there? what about the absurdly located patch of agriculture?

yeti homes and mining tunnels

dissapointingly this tunnel into the limestone was short and not a a skarn...

luckily it housed a bat! which I photographed with some difficulty, then accidentally deleted off my camera, and so had to go back in for a second, significantly more difficult try... oops.
this yeti-home is constructed of "elephant skin" weathered limestone. very sharp. oweeee!

not jumping

Here I am atop a particularly square rock.

sunset in the marble mountains

First the grey rocks turn yellow...

Then orange...

Then black while the sky turns from blue to gold...

And then to pink.

Shortly thereafter you find yourself completely enshrouded by black until the pinpricks of starlight come into view.

Good day - Bad day

So far today has been rather mood-swingy...

• Good day: have a home for kitten to go to! Hooray!!!
• Better day: vet squeezed me in early today so I could finish up with kitten's boosters and he'd be all ready to go to San Luis Obispo (his new home) Tuesday morning! Yay! Thanks vet!
• Even better day: finally thought of something for my last present to get, managed to squeeze all presents as well as minimal amount of clothing into suitcase, was able to drink coffee again for the first time in a week! Yipee!
• Great day: will be able to squeeze in one last day of desert romping before leaving the country. Woohoo!

Say bye-bye to kitten!

• Bad day: called rental car people about a suddenly flattish tire on rental car, they directed me to their tire place where I had to hang around for an hour or so while they fixed the car. Grrr - time waster.
• Worse day: stopped by bank to get Canadian money, they said they don't deal with foreign exchange, I have to order that on the phone ('cause what - they're a BANK, that's not what banks DO???). Gave me a number, sent me to their lobby phone where I called, found out it was not the right number, called the number the phone person gave me, found out that you don't order the money over the phone you order it at the branch... phone guy commented that I had clearly received "stellar customer service". Stood back in line at the branch, tried again, they claimed ignorance and tried having me order it over the internet. Turns out there's a minimum amount one can order this way (which was more than I wanted) AND there's a fee that's bigger than if I just took money out from the bank machine in Canada. (This, by the way, was one of the first things I asked about when I started the inquiries...)
• Rip my f*$#ing hair out day: got denied for line of credit, which makes Jeep purchasing INCREDIBLY difficult. Total time wasted at bank? 2 hrs.
  

• Better day: found out Pi was going to drive the kitten to the coast rather than me having to do that tomorrow. Pi has fabulously saved me AN ENTIRE DAY of time that I can use to deal with any of the above things that made today a bad day.
  

What does JEEP stand for again?

Here's looking at a late xmas present for myself (only for 2x the cost of the damage on my Golf!)

damn, they really DO play with TP

it's like they're posing

Sorry - couldn't resist...