Pop culture blind spots

I was listening to DNTO (Definitely Not the Opera) on CBC yesterday and they were interviewing people about their pop culture blind spots. You know, the events/shows/books/music everyone seems to talk about and that you haven't heard/read or picked up. Here are my pop culture blind spots:

• Although I read lots, I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. I have seen two of the movies though.
• I've never watched a single episode of American or Canadian Idol (or the Quebec version, Star Académie).
• I don't do text messages. The cell phone interface was never meant to write anything, even keying in people's names when I save their phone number is brutal, why would I want to write someone when I can use the same device to call them.
• I've never seen a Monty Python show. People keep on quoting skits at work and I am clueless about what they are referring to.

What are your pop culture blind spots?

We are now one week past the half marathon and I still haven't gone out for a run. I'm taking this resting thing seriously :-) No worries, I plan to return to a regular working schedule this week, but I did enjoy being lazy for a few days.

On Friday, I did go out for a few hours of salsa dancing again. Unfortunately, the place was packed beyond what is reasonable, and after getting elbowed and haired (whacked across the face by someone spinning a full head of hair), I thought I had had enough of it and left around 11:30.

On Saturday morning, I had a meeting at the bank for an RRSP loan. With the contracting work I did between the two jobs, I wanted to max out my contributions. Then, I did some shopping, mostly house stuff and basics, cleaned the condo a bit, had a nap, and prepared myself for a concert in the evening. Annie's work, Les Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, was sending three very talented musicians all the way to Vancouver, there was no way I was going to miss the performance. And I also knew the clarinet player, Jean-Francois Normand, very well.

The concert was great, although there weren't that many of us in attendance. It was held at the Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver, a center I didn't know even existed and is located only a few minutes away from my place. Maybe the venue had to do with the poor showing, it's not a very known place. After the concert, we went out for a few drinks. It was fun to spend the entire evening chatting in French!

Today, I could've spent the entire day in my pajamas, if it wasn't for the fact that I was missing some food essentials. It was cold and rainy outside, unfortunately for Jean-Francois who probably wanted to visit Stanley Park this morning. I hope he went out anyways, the park is definitely worth the trouble.

The Olympics are now over and I haven't watched a single event. If I had TV, I would have probably watched a few hours here and there. We even had it on at work, in the family room. I always read about the results in the evening, on news web sites, but none of the short clips I could see included anything but stills with some voice-over, which is not very exciting.

Recent readings

I haven't kept up with my resolution of one book per week, but I haven't stopped reading entirely. Some books just take more than one week, not solely because of size, but more often because of the lack of free time.

Your Successful Project Management Career, from Ron Cagle. Not a book about project management, but about where to look for advice and information on project management. Lots of references to other books, to professional associations, to certification exams and university programs. The book also matches the various levels of responsibility in project management with the skills required. A gateway to additional reading on the subject.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, from Alice Munro. This was another lovely collection of short stories by Munro, stories where the mainly female protagonists are always captivating.

Who Moved My Cheese, from Spencer Johnson. A book about managing change that made me figure out I probably do a pretty good job of it already. Since I moved to Vancouver, my life has been all about change, change of city and province, change of friends, change of jobs, change of relationships... I found the book very simplistic and naive, nothing I would recommend. I should have known, it was a best-selling "business" title for a while. That should tell me everything.

Other race stuff

I promised a pre-race picture with some of my clinic buddies, here it is. We were still smiling when we crossed the finish line!

I received this wonderful pendant in the mail today. I ordered it from a local jewelry artist after finishing the half-marathon. It's my own little personal reward for reaching this goal.


Running buddies from the clinic

Midori and the Symphony

Cultural outing for February: an evening at the Symphony with Lara. This was Lara's first time ever at the Symphony, so I made sure to pick a really good concert. Midori playing the Bruch Violin Concerto No.1 and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting Dvorak's Symphony No.7. Superb! Yannick, who is normally conducting the Metropolitan Orchestra in Montreal, is vibrant and energetic, his style quite unusual, even for the musicians I would think. We had a chance to listen to the pre-concert talk, hosted by one of the musicians from the orchestra, and she told the audience that they were quite impressed with the young conductor's approach, telling them to have fun, to think of the music as being sexy.

I hope that these evenings at the Symphony become a tradition...

Half marathon... check!

I feel giddy writing the title for my post. I did it! I ran a half marathon, my very first, and it wasn't so bad. It's pretty exciting to reach a goal you've set for yourself. My time was nothing stellar, or even good compared to some of the other runners, but it's my baseline for other races in the future, and I'm pretty proud of it. I ran in 2:33:05, close to my initial 2:30 goal.

Now, I have to admit that my legs are sore, and so are my knees. It's a long race, and a lot of work. Fortunately, I had booked a two-hour massage with Gerri this afternoon. It will help my poor legs on their road to recovery. No running this week, no heavy weights, just some light cardio. Gotta recover properly.

We were quite fortunate for the race, it was cool but sunny, barely windy. Volunteers were out in numbers, cheering runners and distributing water and Gatorade. At the post-race event, we had yummy bananas, oranges, yogurt, bagels, all organic or whole grain, and even some chicken-noodle soup. As soon as I stopped running, I cooled down really quickly so the warm bowl of soup was more than welcome.

One of my clinic buddies, Diane, took a picture of the 2:30 group before the race. I'll upload it to the blog as soon as she e-mails it to me.

Next up? The Sun Run in April (with the hope of running 10km under an hour), the Scotiabank half marathon on June 25, to keep me going, and, depending on how things are going, the Royal Victoria Marathon in October. Lara and Gerri promised they would be at the finish line in Victoria, cheering me on, if I run it, how can I disappoint them?

Salsa

When I first moved to Vancouver, I took some salsa lessons. I always had a great time dancing and I love the music. Yesterday, my friend Rafael, who used to work with me but changed jobs recently, asked me to join him and a few friends to a salsa night at the Law Courts (yes, the Vancouver Law Courts have a large dance floor on the 4th floor... don't ask).

I had such a great time! I'll definitely go back, I might even take a few more lessons to help me remember the moves and spins. I also enjoyed watching some of the more advanced dancers struttin' their stuff... good dancers make it look so easy and sexy!

You think I should sign up for this race?

It has my name written all over it (literally).

Extra mile

Today, I received an extra mile from my big boss (I have two bosses, the one to which I report directly and his boss, or the big boss, and I work with both regularly). An extra mile is an internal recognition for employees who have worked beyond their expected duties, who have "gone the extra mile." The big boss was recognizing my work as a project manager for the release we successfully shipped today (on target). I'm really happy about this, it means a lot to me. I hope to move to project management in the future, and getting some real-life experience is worth gold.

The extra mile also comes with a US$50 certificate that I am free to use as I wish. Cool.

I'm here, I'm here...

I just realized it's been a week since my last update. We've been busy at work and I've had plans for the last three nights, so this didn't leave me much time for anything.

The weekend started with a new tradition Lara, Gerri and I have started: Girl's Night Out. No boys allowed, we pick a restaurant we'd like to try and spent an evening together, chatting and laughing. We went to Hapa Isakaya, a Japanese restaurant on Robson. The food was fabulous, as was the place. Unfortunately, it was probably too rich (and we ate quite a bit), so I felt a little bit nauseous all night. I didn't really sleep much. I'll know next time to enjoy but eat sparingly.

On Saturday, Vancouver woke up to a beautiful, sunny and warm day. Everyone was out enjoying the day. Some flowers are timidly breaking the ground, some of the Rhodos, maybe a bit confused, are also blossoming. Lovely. I did some shopping, again on Robson. Lots of places had sales, and I picked up a few clothing items for quite the deal. I went back home, had a nap, then made dinner and prepared for the evening. I was invited to my friend Jeff's birthday party (Jeff used to live in my building, but he moved six months ago). He now owns a place in Gastown, a real bachelor pad that he renovated splendidly. The party was packed, very loud, and quite fun. I'm surprised nobody called the cops.

I didn't go home very late, my throat was a bit sore and I wanted to avoid getting sick.

This morning, I slept in a bit. This is the first Sunday I get to do this in a while (well, except for the plumbing-problem evening), our run for the day was only 6km, I thought I would run it later, by myself. This week is about tapering off, not going too hard on the runs, to let the body recuperate for the big race next weekend. Yes, February 19 is in a week! It's both exciting to finally approach this date, and scary.

I bought a heartrate monitor using a coupon from the clinic, and tried it on my run in the afternoon. I actually ran with it for 5 minutes until I had to shut it down, it kept on beeping madly at me. I probably didn't set up the target rates properly, so it had my 85% rate set to 161, which is too low. I guess I'll have to read the manual :-)

From one extreme to the other

OK, I will only write a few words about the weather because I won't let it take over this posting, but the weekend could not have called for two more opposite conditions. Saturday was miserable, very windy and rainy, which means the rain travels sideways and carrying an umbrella is just plain silly. Today, oh well, the sun was out for the entire day, with just a few clouds in the sky. Marvelous.

So, it's Sunday night and I have no idea where the weekend went. Yesterday, the miserable day, I went to an information session for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer with my colleague Sarah. She works in the training department. Sarah is walking the 60km with me this year, how exciting! Haven't heard from me about all the fundraising I have to do? No worries, it's coming! I wanted to give everyone a break after Christmas and start firing out e-mails in February. After the information session, we went for lunch in Kitsilano. It was fun getting to know Sarah a bit more outside of work. We get along pretty well.

Then, in the afternoon, I had a baby shower for my friend Justin and his wife Patty. Patty is due March 7, pretty soon, so a bunch of us packed their apartment for snacks, drinks, and lots of baby stuff. Patty had a great idea for original guest contributions: she bought a bunch of plain onesies and gave people decals and paint to create unique designs for the baby. Some were really creative. The best one had a bunch of colored dots on the front and "Smartie Pants" on the bum in the back. Ahhhh... So cute!

After the shower (baby and rain), I went back home to watch a few episodes of 24. I went to bed early, Sunday was going to be a busy day.

And believe me, it was. I ran 20km (two-zero, that's two Sun Runs back-to-back), in about 2:45. This was not a race, but a chance to work our poor legs up to a distance reasonably similar to the race. Boy was I sore, and still am. That's a lot of running.

In the afternoon, Lara and I went to the Wellness show. Think home and garden, but for natural products, organic food, fitness accessories and trends... the whole works. Gerri was working at the show, demonstrating Thai massage and she gave us free tickets to check out the exhibit. We ate lots of samples (some very tasty, others just plain nasty), talked to a few vendors, found some natural personal care products we're probably going to try.

And that was my weekend. I'm not planning to go to bed late, as soon as I start reading I'll probably immediately fall asleep. I'm feeling this morning's run now and my walking around the entire afternoon. That's going to be a good night's sleep :-)