Archive for December, 2006
Ok, so took a long bus ride and got in early this morning (like 3am) but at least I had a nice huge bed to sleep in. Got up early (missed warmup), no clothes yet from the airport so I dressed in my stinky jeans and headed to see what classes I could do today. Had a few options and ended up taking Casey Kaleba’s falling off furniture (just standard back rolls off tables and the like, nothing crazy); even more cool in the afternoon I had Tony (Wolf) who was reviewing his process for creating fantasy fights (similar to what he went through for Lord of the Rings). He chose the Ramen and the Cords as the base culture from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (one of my favourite books) which made it very familiar, educational and exciting. Still no clothes at the end of the day… that worries me as tomorrow is New Year’s day so I don’t think I’ll see anything delivered then either. Everyone got dressed up (excluding me) and went to the facility bar to ring in the new year with the rest of the fighters.
December 31st, 2006
Landed in Calgary and my luggage is missing… not missing exactly, they just didn’t put it on the plane. Why? Apparently there were weight issues with the flight. However, I’m an elite status guy and I was upgraded to business classs so you’d think that my luggage would be the first luggage down the ramp, but I guess flying almost 100,000 miles doesn’t mean much to Air Canada. My luggage is slated to arrive first thing tomorrow in Banff (which is good because my shoes and workout clothes are in my bags which I need). Now I have to wait 3.5 more hours to catch the bus to Banff Centre for the Arts. I (along with a few others) missed registration tonight, so hopefully that doesn’t mean I’ll miss anything cool tomorrow.
December 30th, 2006
Early this morning we went and visited Grandpa at his resting site. Grandma had apparently never visited there… it was a nice location (what more can I say?) After lunch, headed back to Grant’s to help with dinner. Grant had done so much prep (he made so much food) for dinner for us before my flight. It was nice helping a bit given that I had been freeloading and it was a wonderful dinner (although Graeme was not feeling too well so he didn’t join). I headed off to the airport and will miss having late night conversations with Grant, he’s an extremely interesting guy to talk to.
December 30th, 2006
Today we travelled out to Gimli and surrounding areas to visit my cousins (both Uncle Stu’s kids). I haven’t seen Mike (”Mike Motorbike” as people used to call him) in at least 14 years and I never met Stewart. It was great to meet their families and hear what they have been up to for the past, oh you know, forever. They were both great and it is fantastic to have them as my extended family (I just have to make sure I visit more often). Might plan a visit back during the Icelandic festival and see Lake Winnipeg in summer. I’m miss stuff like this… I’m such a northern boy.
December 29th, 2006
Arrived early in the AM at Grant’s and we talked for an hour or so which was really fantastic. Grant gave me his room while he slept in the basement (very kind and totally unnecessary), I couldn’t convince him otherwise. After a bit of going around town and lunch with Grant and Graeme we all headed over to Grandma’s for gift opening and dinner. Connor has grown a lot and was having lots of fun running around playing with his toys and Anna dyed her hair (looks nice but I think I like blonde more). It was nice to have all the family together but K should have joined us.
December 28th, 2006
Today packing for my trip to Winnipeg and follow on course in Banff. Seems like I haven’t been home at all (actually, I’ve only really been home for 9 days which isn’t long at all) so I’m sad to be leaving Karen at home but also excited about heading West.
December 27th, 2006
Ok seriously - The Break-Up is complete crap. As a comedy, if written well, it could have been not a bad premise… however, it wasn’t written as a comedy. It is an exploration of two people who have a fight, break-up, spend all their time trying to hurt each other and then at the end go their separate ways. On my new scale of poor-good-fantastic, it scores a phat 0. Not worth watching, renting or even knowing about. I can’t believe that movies like that get green-lighted by studios, have big name “talent” attached with a $50M budget. Sadly it has made about $250M to date which is just depressing since it will be considered a success.
December 26th, 2006
I hope everyone had a joyous and exciting wren day today. Karen and I watched the rest of the PotC2 special features today and then went out for a walk in Waterloo Park to see the Wonders of Winter lighting display. It was nice to get outside after a few days of being indoors and walk around in the VERY GREEN Christmas weather.
December 26th, 2006
… to one and all. Karen and I got up at the crack of 10am and opened gifts. It was very fun and we both very synergistcally got each other similar gifts (books we wanted, hoodies to keep us warm and tv series we like; she also got me a new carry-on suitcase which I desperately needed). Yay! Had a very loafy day and watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on DVD. Karen wasn’t feeling well early this morning and that persisted into the evening and wasn’t feeling spectacular so I went and visited S+S (and Fergy, Mary and Melanie) for dinner which was a nice get together. Happy Holiday’s everyone, hope that people had a great Christmas day and got all the things that they might have wanted from Santa.
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December 25th, 2006
We had Allan, Pat, Elinore and Bill over for christmas eve dinner (and gift exchange) since Karen’s dad and Elinore are going to her family for Christmas day. It was nice to see them and I was happy that Bill (who recently lost his wife, Elinore’s daughter) was able to join us for at least a bit of nice company during the holidays. Karen made a special treat for us for dessert, Pönnukökur! They were very yummy (and reminds me of special Sundays at Grandma’s house), truth be told I ate more than my fair share.
December 24th, 2006
… before the holidays. Usually I don’t work up until the last day and really try to take some time off to get my shopping done, but not this year. Quite a few people still in the office which is fun and they had a potluck lunch and movie watching session to wrap it all up. Fun stuff cause I work with a great group of people (the reason I am still there after 9 years). Looking forward to being away for a while though, getting some down time and picking up this crazy train in January. Happy holidays to everyone @ OTC.
December 22nd, 2006
So, looks like I’ll be a couple thousand short of super-elite status on Air Canada. That’s really frustrating because to fly 98000 miles is no small feat and it’s stupid to come so close and miss out on the benefits (such as being able to use airmiles to book reward flights at a moments notice). Oh well, it will work out or not as the fates dictate (maybe my €50 blessing will push me over the edge) — I can’t actually do any more flying because (a) I want to actually spend some time with Karen and (b) I am already flying 3 times between now and the end of the year.
December 21st, 2006
Today was mom’s 60th birthday (happy birthday mom! call you soon!!) Unfortunately I’m flying pretty much the only time I can get a hold of her. I’m really really happy to be going home. 10 days away is a lot of time (no matter what fun you might be having). Meetings went well on Monday and Tuesday in the Munich office with lots of interesting stuff going on there. Going back the third week of January for even more work - not sure I want to do that, but I guess we’ll get what we get. Got on our flight home, but apparently it was “space pod class” because we didn’t have seats, we had little business-class zones. Very strange and apparently it was new to the flight attendants as well. Got my photos of the entire India trip finally uploaded.
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December 19th, 2006
Flight into Frankfurt was good - but it had AMAZING fog. Flight over to Munich was great and because it was overnight, we arrived feeling great.
December 18th, 2006
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