Some Christmas pictures

A lot of them are very dark, but you can enjoy a few pictures from my Christmas holidays here.

Made it back to Vancouver safely

The flight was on time. Nice. Although it was a bit hard to come back to nobody waiting for me at the airport. It's always nice to come back to a familiar face. At least it started really raining hard AFTER I made it home. Good thing, 'cause I wasn't moving really quickly with the monster suitcase. Time for bed now, my clock says 11:30, but it's 2:30 Montreal time. I'm tired.

Only a few days left until snow

Please make sure it doesn't all melt and then freeze solid, making me wonder whether I should wear skates or boots to step out of my parent's place. This was Montreal last year. I'm checking the weather report, it looks decent, not too cold, a bit more snow. Fun!

I got a call back from the food bank, they had indeed cancelled the weekend shifts and somehow, they forgot to call me. The woman on the phone sounded terribly sick, like she had a really bad cold. I couldn't really be angry.

Last night, I had dinner with my friend Ian who is visiting his parents in Vancouver. We talked about MBAs, as he is enrolled in the intensive MBA at HEC... in French! I'm very impressed with the fact that he had the option of taking his courses in English, but decided to do them in French instead. That says a lot about the quality of French immersion programs in Vancouver.

Tonight and tomorrow will be spent cleaning the condo, washing clothes for the trip and packing. How exciting!

Christmas shopping, new friends

I think I pulled it off and did most of my Christmas shopping in one day. Granville Island is a great place to find all kinds of treats, especially when the day is so beautiful. OK, this is probably not very kind, considering the recent dump of snow on Montreal, but when it's been raining for 10 days non-stop out here, you can brag about the clear winter days back East.

I started ripping some of my CDs, so I can listen to them on the iPod. I walked the Granville Island with some energetic music, to kick off the day. It was wonderful. I quickly ran out of fingers to hold the bags, so I had to return home with my findings and then walk back to Granville Island to meet with Libby, Dan, and Jonas. Libby and Dan are friends of Dina and Steve, they used to live in San Francisco, but moved to Vancouver in July. I had a great time meeting with them, chatting about life on the West Coast and running. Libby and Dan signed up for the half-marathon in May (part of the Vancouver marathon) and were curious about the Running Room clinics and my own training.

I had to leave them around 4 to prepare for my evening shift at the food bank society. I made it to the warehouse at 5, unfortunately, nobody was there. I banged on a few doors, ran the doorbell, it looked empty. I saw a few delivery trucks parked outside but no cars. Maybe the shift was cancelled, they should have let us know... I left a message when I returned home and asked them to contact me about tomorrow's shift. The food bank is a 40-minute bus ride away from home, I don't really want to return if nobody is going to be there.

Tomorrow is my 16 km run, I'm looking forward to yet another milestone. Then, I'll be going in to work for a few hours, to make up for taking Friday afternoon off to fly to Montreal.


Blue sky, a bit on the cold side, in Vancouver

Lucky strike

Yesterday was our Christmas party at the office. We had the afternoon off, appies and drinks in the family room, a group activity based on CSI, and lots of draws and presents. We were also collecting money and food for the Vancouver Food Bank Society.

The afternoon was quite fun, I met a few people that I didn't know from the 7th floor (where most of the admin, sales and marketing functions operate from), and I lucked out! I won the biggest prize being drawn, a pair of Canucks tickets for the game on December 23 against Calgary, and the donation prize (if you made a donation, you were also entered in a separate draw) of an iPod Shuffle. Talk about being really lucky! I unfortunately had to get rid of the tickets, as the game was on the night I am flying back to Montreal. It was really easy to find an interested buyer! But I can't wait to try out my new iPod. It's really cool.

Cause for (cautious) celebration!

My accounting teacher sent out tentative grades to everyone this morning (grades still have to be approved by the university, but there is normally no adjustments, so this should stick). I ended up with an A :-)

I came in to the exam just below the class average. Class marks for assignments and participation were really high. However, the class average for the exam was 64%... Told you it was pretty hard, but I did well in the final. Only three students were given A marks in the class!

Only 12 days 'till Christmas

And not a single present bought... I'm pulling a last-minute stunt this year, everything has to be done on Saturday. Let's see how well this goes.

Life after accounting is very pleasant, but just as busy. Last weekend, I was out every evening and spent very little time at home. On Friday night, I had dinner with Lara and Charles and then we watched Mr & Mrs Smith. The movie was terrible, the company, wonderful. Then, on Saturday morning, I went to Rackets & Runners to check out their running shoes. I bought a pair of Mizuno and then immediately went to try them at the gym. Fortunately, this pair was perfect, it felt comfortable from the very beginning. That's one thing settled. Then, I went to get a hair cut and finally had dinner with friends in an Italian restaurant on Commercial Drive (my old 'hood).

I didn't go to bed late on Saturday because I was set to run 14km Sunday morning. No snow this time, Sunday was part sunny, part foggy. 14km wasn't so bad, let's see how 16km feels this Sunday. After the run, I came back home to shower and change, had lunch and went to pick up the rental car. I was having dinner at Lindsay's place in Anmore and needed some wheels to make the trip. I also took advantage of the car to do some grocery shopping and buy lots of cans. When I walk to the grocery store, I typically try to avoid anything really heavy.

I drove to Anmore just in time to see the sun come down (around 4:30 p.m., how sad), I played with the new dog and with the old one, we had a wonderful dinner prepared by Sarah, who is staying with Lindsay's family this year, had a chance to chat with Lindsay about everything and nothing (and some about technical writing and writers we both know), then drove back to Vancouver. It was already Sunday night.

One good thing about not having any homework is that I've been religiously attending my group runs and also going for additional runs on my own. I'm keeping up with the program, which gives me a lot of confidence for the half-marathon race in February.

Bring out the eggnog...

... I'm ready to start with the celebrations! My exam is over!!

Double yay!

It was damn hard, I wrote like a mad woman and poked at the calculator must faster than normal fingers can move, here's to hoping that the tension in my neck was well worth it. We should get preliminary results before I leave for Montreal. However, I've done all I could do, and once I hide the accounting books far, far away and clean up all the notes and printouts that are scattered all around the condo, I can really start relaxing.

Or can I...

There's a holiday coming up, no? Some shopping to be done? Some parties to attend? Some friends to catch up with?

It's all good.

Fly this!

I don't think I would have ever collected enough Air Miles to get a free flight (at least not when I keep on using them), but I managed to collect enough to replace my current set of pots and pans with a much needed upgrade. My current cookware's non-stick surface was very scratched and probably a bit dangerous. Now, I live in a new world of stainless steel, heavy bottoms, and so many possibilities... All this for free. Well, OK, $10. That's what the cab from downtown cost me. Purolator delivered the box when I wasn't home (obviously) and when I saw the box I had to pick up, I knew this wasn't going to make me very popular on the rush-hour bus ride home.


More shiny and new!

Running in the snow

Not that there's snow on the ground, but it's coming down heavily. If the temperature was a few degrees cooler, we would be looking at 8-10 cm.

I ran 12 km this morning, the longest distance I have ever run. Every Sunday until Christmas is going to increase the mileage by another 2... I felt fine but was still a bit tired from fighting the cold and sore from the Bootcamp session, so I didn't feel as energetic as I expected. Running in the snow is not bad, it's better than getting really wet!


Showfall in Vancouver

Behold the new tank!

Shiny and new... and no longer leaking!

Almost... but not really

I was close to calling my hot water tank replacement a success, until I noticed water pooling in the dish where it sits... I was convinced we had dried the dish for the new tank, why was there still water? Because one of the new fittings that the guy had to make to accommodate the new tank was leaking, that's why. I tell you, you almost have to expect something to go wrong with every job you pay someone to do.

Other than that, I was pretty happy with the timing of everything, the installer came in at 9:30, left at 11:30, giving me just enough time to eat a quick lunch before my online session with the accounting teacher at noon. It looked nice outside, so I was going to step out for a walk to clear my mind before studying tonight. However, now I have to wait for this gentleman to finish his current job and get his ass back here to fix what he didn't do properly the first time around.

I tell you...

Great...

I'm minding my own business, preparing for an online review session with my accounting teacher tomorrow, when I start hearing this hissing sound. It's not exactly like someone's vacuum, maybe something outside? I walk downstairs and suddenly discover the sound is coming from my broom closet, where my hot water tank is. Tada! The tank is leaking (fortunately it sits in a deep dish that also has an overflow, so it's not making a mess). I knew that my tank was on its way out, when I bought the place over two years ago, this is something my inspector mentioned that I would need to replace... soon. Well, I guess I showed him!

So, I call a 24-hour water tank specialist, they dispatch me to their on-call person, he coaches me through the steps to stop the hissing and prevent any further damage, and a new tank is on its way tomorrow morning. Good thing, 'cause I can't shower right now. I could have told them that I'll get back to them about the new tank and then shopped around. This could save me a few bucks. But I don't have time to deal with this right now, and it's my fault for waiting so long to address this (one of my neighbors is also looking at replacing hers, she reminded me this was on my to-do list), so I'm biting the bullet and going ahead with the installation. Oh well.

Feeling much better!

Today was definitely one of the better days I have had recently. My cold is pretty much gone (a little bit of coughing remains), I went to the gym at work for a BootCamp session (think really hard cardio, strength and core training session) during lunch, and signed up for a fitness assessment with one of the personal trainers, with the objective of doing ten sessions with her starting in January. My muscle are quite sore, I know I'll pay for this tomorrow, but after being inactive for two weeks, I had a twitch :-) Funny how a regular exercise routine becomes addictive.

It's snowing again in Vancouver, simply lovely! It's not very cold, so it will probably melt by tomorrow, but still...