All moved in

and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Tucker's move this weekend went rather well and he is very pleased with his new apartment. Oh, there's always the odd thing to get fixed or changed, but as a whole, the outcome is positive. The new place is such an improvement from the old one, more light, better air circulation, away from the street noise (and the noisy neighbor), renovated kitchen, a bedroom, lots of closet/storage space... I'm definitely going to enjoy spending time there with him ;)

We rented Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on Friday. What a strange but entertaining movie. I haven't read the book yet, but I would now be tempted to do so, as well as the two other books in the series (two? three?). The DVD has all kinds of extras, including a sign-along for So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (sang by dolphins as they are about to leave Earth and say farewell to humans).

That's gonna hurt!

I'm looking ahead at a big week, again ;) Work and school means that any extras are taking whatever little free time there is left.

Tucker is moving to a larger apartment, one that does not require him to sleep in his living room and where the bedroom window doesn't open on West 12th/Oak, a traffic filled intersection that is also an emergency response route. Obviously, I'm going to give him a hand. We're starting the move on Thursday night, some more on Friday and by Saturday, he has to be out of his place. Fortunately, the new apartment is in the same building. Unfortunately, it's two floors up and there's no elevator.

Then, on Wednesday, I'm going to pretend it's Halloween while all my neighbors drop by to collect keys and remotes for the garage. Our recycling company had their office broken into and all their keys and garage clickers have gone missing. Since they service entire neighborhoods, I'm also assuming that these keys/remotes had addresses attached to them. So, we're having all the locks to the garage replaced Thursday and obviously, people need the new key. Since we're asking everyone to line up for key distribution, the property management company thought it would also be a good idea to distribute the new remotes we're getting for the garage. These are safer models (they have a programmed PIN number) that we will be using with the new door going in next week. Why I ended up with the distribution is still a mystery. It's just happened that way.

And... Tucker was offered some free hockey tickets for the Canucks game next Saturday. They're playing against the Mighty Ducks, I think.

Yes, it's gonna hurt. Add to this the regular regimen of work (we're releasing next week), homework (assignment due every Sunday), workouts (hopefully twice per week) and I think I'll sleep in all day Sunday.

Cool thing though, I'm looking after one of my neighbor's condo while she is away in China and the Vancouver Sun didn't seem to get the message about her canceling her newspaper delivery while she was away. I get two weeks of reading the paper in the morning, the luxury :-)

Under a cloud of smoke

This is probably something you've heard about in the news, but in any case, there's a huge fire burning in a peat moss bog south of Vancouver and depending on the winds, it really smells like smoke. It wasn't so bad Monday and Tuesday (unless you live/work in Richmond or at the airport... poor Tucker), but this morning, when I left the house, the smell was almost overwhelming. This is NOT a good time to go for a run outside.

I want this!

But it's only available to Mac users :-(
http://www.delicious-monster.com/

This software really appeals to my interest in keeping everything ordered and maintaining lists... I sent an e-mail to the company, asking if they have any intention of coding this for the PC world. Cross your fingers!

First Fringe Festival experience

I've always been a bit weary of the Fringe Festivals... I'm not a big theater fan to start with and not a big gambler either. You have to be both to immerse yourself happily in the strange world of the Fringe.

So I was a bit surprised when Lara offered me an evening at the Vancouver Fringe Festival as part of my birthday present. Smart girl, she also asked me to pick the venue... Yikes! I therefore dutifully picked up a recent copy of The West Ender, a free weekly about events and stories in the West End. In it I found a few previews for Fringe shows, including Saltwater. This is the play we went to see last night.

The storyline was quite original. Two sets of twins, brother who end up lost at sea and transformed into fishes and conjoined sisters who can separate under water and therefore grow quite fond of spending time swimming. So much that their mom (same mom for both sets of twins) has them practice choreographies in the hope of cashing in on these unusual girls. Add to this a narrative by a tall Glad man (all in white, hair included) and talking guppies... Yes. Original. But good as well, the characters were touching and complex, and the storyline, a little bit confusing at the beginning, unraveled as the story was told and connected the dots very efficiently.

Pleasantly surprised!

Back to school

Today and tomorrow are orientation days at SFU for students taking online graduate business courses, as I am (these are prerequisites for my MBA). This is a chance to meet with other students and talk about how we are going to handle online learning and virtual teams. So, this morning, instead of grabbing my regular bag and work ID, I filled my backpack with heavy books and headed back to school. It was kind of fun, actually.

Orientation day was filled with team building activities, learning about WebCT, our online learning environment, and familiarizing ourselves with the resources available to students. I was really impressed with the library resources and the amount of information that they make available to us online. Entire books, journals, specialized publications, all accessible from home, with the proper login information. Libraries have changed a lot since I last went to University, for the best. I think this semester will be a rewarding experience and I'm looking forward to starting the actual MBA classes, one year from now.

I guess I would love to go back to school full-time, to allow myself to really focus on the courses. However, I think that my current workplace will open many doors that might not be accessible without a bit of internal networking.

Everything is wet

Well, at least we tried. We knew that September was going to be busy, so a long weekend was very tempting for an extended camping trip. Not so. It rained the entire 24 hours when we were out, so we came back early. We're not really set up for rain. The tent will survive a downpour, but we don't have enough tarp or rope to put up a dry area around the table where we could sit and read without getting drenched. So when it ends up raining almost the entire time you're out (OK, we were able to start a small campfire and roast some hotdogs), it's not really fun.

Our trip took us to Birkenhead Provincial Park, about 90km North of Whistler. This could be a good spot to take a couple of kayaks for a weekend. Tucker tried his luck at finishing, thinking this was definitely fish-friendly weather, but no bites.

So now, everything is out drying on my balconies, the tent, the fly, the air mattress, the chairs... The weather in Vancouver is cool and somewhat sunny. Maybe if it's still nice tomorrow, I'll take out my bike for a ride on the seawall.


Tucker is hoping the fish enjoy the cold and wet weather

Accounting is... not so bad

I'm reading almost 200-pages of required reading for a course that has not already started... Welcome to grad school, missy! My class this Fall is accounting, both Financial (basis) and Managerial (how to use the info). I'm surprisingly finding myself... interested in what I am reading. This applies to investments, reporting my revenues and expenses when I was contracting, and really helps me understand a lot of the information around me. It's a steep learning curve at the beginning (so many terms to learn), but I'm pretty sure that soon, it will make sense. Back to my book now.