October 25, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 12:45 pm Comments 9
Before I moved away from home to go to University, I used to be a morning person. It suited me fine because if I woke up at 6am, I was guaranteed to have the first shower in the morning. It is an important thing when growing up with 4 other people in the household. It also gave me time to have a cooked breakfast… Mmmmm Pancakes…. I’m digressing here.
Even while in Vancouver I was a morning person. I usually got to University before 9am (it was aprox 25 min bike ride). While at IBM, I usually got to work earlier than most (that is until we got rid of my car and I had to walk. Then I got in a little later).
I was pleasantly reminded of this early bird syndrome today as I strolled into my office just after 8am and fixed a major bug in some code I have been writting for 2 weeks within 5min of sitting down. My mind has always been its sharpest in the morning (I am excluding my first year Chem class which was at 8:30am 3days a week. I never really was able to wrap my mind around that stuff). I find that most of the best work I do is before 1pm. Especially when I am coding.
After feeling rather pleased with myself, I gave myself a pat on the back and sat back and wondered why I have so much trouble getting out of bed here in Scotland? I know what Neyir would say to that: Sleep Apnea; which has got worse over the years. I think though, a bigger factor would be the sun. In the fall and winter, the sun sets early and rises late. I think my eyes are telling my brain that I should still be asleep. I would like to say that it is because Neyir kicks in her sleep, but that would be a lie.
I have been noticing the past couple of weeks that the sun has been rising later and later. I had better get as much work done before we lose any more precious sunlight.
To all you readers… What time do you get up? and how do you feel when your alarm clock goes off?
October 20, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 9:49 am Comments 2
Can you belive I was windsurfing on Loch Tay in Scotland in the middle of October. Although it doesn’t get as cold here as it does in Canada, it doesn’t get as warm either. So the Lochs are much colder than the lakes I have swam in the Canadian shield. That being said, when presented with the opportunity to windsurf, I thought to myself “How often do I get the chance to try this out”, so a few minutes later saw me pitifully attempting to windsurf. It was great fun. Mighty cold, but a wetsuit kept me mostly warm. I wasn’t stellar at it, but for a first attempt I thought I did fairly well. It was also fun to float around on the board in the middle of Loch Tay and enjoy the view and cold. Richard and I enjoyed jumping off our boards and floating around so much that the rescue boat came over wondering if things were ok. I told them “we were enjoying a bit of a float.” Sounds a little odd, doesn’t it? Anways, after 6 hours of windsurfing, my bones were chilled through and I won’t even mention the shrinkage. Ummmm…. I guess i already did.
Anyways, the Math dept organised the outdoor adventure for 3rd year undergrads and a few post grads got to go along to help out. The place is called Firbush and is the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Sports and Exercise. Activities I tried included: kayaking, canoeing, and windsurfing. It was mighty fun. I don’t get to go into the northish of scotland very much and the more I do, the more I want to. If I am still around next October (Let us hope that I have graduated and moved on by then), I am going to firbush.
The Loch didn’t have quite the same feel as the lakes in Muskoka or northern Ontario, but it was still very beautiful in its own way. Wildlife was scarce; well, at least of the large mammal variety. I’ll always remember canoeing in Algonquin Park and haveing a Moose swim by me. It was very cool. Can you belive that they gave no bear warnings. I mean, come on… what kind of place has no bears. Mostly we saw ducks and swans and a very cool fighter jet buzzed us while we were kayaking.
October 16, 2006
Filed under: Neyir's Posts — Neyir @ 10:04 pm Comments 7
Yes, as though to punish me for my birthday absenteeism David has vanished just as my life got nice and busy. David, along with some of his Math colleagues (other PhDs and advisors), have taken a group of 3rd year Math undergrads to a place called Furbish. Does anyone out there know what or is it where this place is. Seemingly it is some sort of camp owned by the university. As someone who works in a University owned and maintained building I am not hopeful as to the conditions they will encounter - should be dire! I am sure David will tell you all about it when he gets back.
As for me, the cup runneth over with my new business. New business you say? Well all will be revealed soon, but let us say that I am finally doing something with my passion for design but am still in the training stage. Despite this I am currently working on two projects, one which I believe I finished tonight but will have a better sense of in the light of day. The other I just got today and need to finish ASAP (only sooner). Oh right and I am off on a course on Thursday for which I have two projects - haven’t starte these yet! So a little busy is me, oh and I have a day job. My goal is obviously to get everything done and to try to remember to eat all my meals and to make them relatively healthy.
Othewise all in Edinburgh is well. We had a fabulous birthday blow-out party last friday for which we will write a post and display some pictures soon, just not now. For those of you who have been to the flat we reckon we had between 50-60 folk over the night with 40 probably the max at any one time. Dad, we can apparently fit 10 people in our kitchen - I did not think it possible, and they were making drinks! Admirable the Irish and good drink makers :-).
Must to bed, I had a goal of 10pm (I have goals for everything!) after being up much too late last night! 9.59 and counting….
October 11, 2006
Filed under: Neyir's Posts, Uncategorized — Neyir @ 9:50 pm Comments 10
There are folks in my life who, I am sure, if questioned would reply that this has been one of the worst years in my life. Well as if to kick me off to another difficult year today has not been a fabulous birthday, it has not been fantastic, it has not even been great and yet it has been wonderfully fulfilling and true. I am eating my birthday dinner at the moment – a BLT bagel melt, on my own in a café.
I tend to be busy – enough laughter, I know I am busy, always trying to do too much. There is always too much going on in my head – only about half of which I actually do. So when it came to my birthday this year I was not terribly organised. My usual Wednesday sees me leaving the house bright and early, heading to work until 1pm then wandering over to the train station with my home-made preheated lunch. Next I hop on a train and begin my long journey to and from my voice lesson and do not make it back into Edinburgh until 7.30pm (7pm if I am really lucky, which I am today). From the train station I head straight to Holmes Place where I have my 8.10 Pilates class and depending on a number of factors have a quick dinner – hence my birthday dinner. By the time I make it home it is 9.45pm. So when David said he wanted to make me dinner for my birthday I responded with not Wednesday or Thursday as I am going out with Melissa (Melissa is organised) so it had best be Tuesday. Which is how I came to be sitting down with my husband last night for a spectacular lamb curry with a £9 bottle of Shiraz – yummy (David assures me the wine was 50% off).
But not to worry I thought, I am mature, I don’t need to have the special dinner on my birthday. In fact this year I have really struggled to remember my birthday at all – David says it is like that as you progress more fully into your 30s and he would know because he is much older than me (32). There was to be a celebration though today because you see my work is a big fan of the Birthday tea (not to be confused with the Scottish come over to mine for tea Friday, translation ‘come to my place for dinner Friday’). Cake and hot beverages are consumed and everyone takes a break for 20 minutes or longer, sometimes much, much longer – but then I work for the health service and best say no more. And so I thought this morning cake was in my future, I was so looking forward to my work celebration that when my darling husband who is not well (headaches, coughs, terrible cold) forgot to say happy birthday thinking quite reasonably that my birthday had happened yesterday (as celebrated by us not that he was mixed up about the day) I thought nothing of it– I was subsequently wished happy birthday with much apology.
Ah but work forgot that I leave early on Wednesday. At noon I was informed that my birthday tea would be tomorrow. I had not had a full breakfast counting on, I thought quite reasonably, cake – 2 slices.
In all honesty none of this phased me. I received a lovely gift from David this morning and I was just happy to be leaving early for a little music therapy. When I got to my teachers village I had one encompassing thought ‘I am glad David insisted that I take an umbrella this morning’.
I have never, never seen it rain in Scotland the way it was raining when I got off the bus in Kippen today. Pigs, chickens, buckets and kitchen sinks were all streaking through the sky towards me. By the time I had walked the 5 metres to the ‘main street’ I was soaked and my suede boots were like mush. As I stepped onto the sidewalk I had one thought which was get to Kathleen’s quickly.
Well it happened quickly, in a second so split I would be hard pressed to tell you (and I am pretty body aware) how I got there. But there I was on the ground in one of the thousands of available puddles. New birthday skirt dripping and my pride, which in the shock had seriously considered crying, shot. But up I got also quickly with a new encompassing thought, because you see I happened to be carrying our very fancy, top of the line, relatively speaking brand new laptop. My remaining walk was somewhat consumed with thinking ‘we Did have a very good case and I had not gone down Too hard’ – I thought and David ‘would probably be more understanding as it Was my birthday’ if I really had trashed a 2nd laptop in a row.
Well…the laptop appears, thankfully, unscathed and I just happen to be typing on it right now as my birthday bagel gets cold.
Yes, it has been bizarre day and the year even more so. But I am actually super thankful about this past year and not only because it is now over. Yes there has been pain, physical and emotional, but there has also been joy, adventure, friendship and family. I think, as you get older (I hope anyway), you get a bit better about seeing the big picture and not letting the isolated dramas take over and you probably know with me there is always drama!!!
You see I did have a second reaction to my fall today besides the pervading impending laptop-related doom and that was laughter. I laughed and then as I looked up into what I could see of the sky through the falling sea and cloud said (yes out loud, I tend to talk to myself a lot) ‘Well God what Are you trying to tell me, this is an awfully auspicious beginning to my next year.’ Well I figured it out, on my walk from the train to Pilates. I laughed. You see that is kind of like what my 30th year was about. I lot of grey cloud and general bad weather, falling sometimes so fast and so far that I could not conceive of how I got there and yet always getting up, realising I was ok and, through grace, laughing because really I was ok.
My bagel is cold now and that too is ok. This has been a great birthday and authentic to my present situation because it shows that I am no longer defining myself through external things and people but through the things that really matter. And no celebration, no cake, no gift could have given me that ?.
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 6:34 pm Comments 0
Woo Hoo,
It is Neyir’s birthday today!! She is still younger than me though, lucky her.
I want everyone to notice that I managed to stay in town for her birthday. hehe
I was considering writing a post about all the great things about Neyir, but I don’t want her to feel that if she doesn’t live up to them in the future that I won’t think she is great. I think she is great and I hope everyone else does as well. Is there anyone who reads this blog who doesn’t think she is great?! If so, let me know so I can kick you in the shin and leave you with a bruise.
We celebrated her birthday yesterday with a home cooked dinner by yours truely (Curry Lamb with Nan and a chocolate mouse with raspberry compost). Then the night continued…. with Candles and some talking.
Then, her waking up in the morining to me forgeting her actual birthday for the first 20 min or so of being awake. She then recieved her present (I’ll let her tell you what I got her… sorry to say it wasn’t an IPOD Nano). If anyone wants to chip in for it though let me know and I’ll tell you how you can (eh… ehmmm… Michael).
Happy Birthday Neyir… I love you lots and lots and I hope this next year is fantastic for you.
October 7, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 3:52 pm Comments 1
for those of you who know me, you know sometimes I go many months without getting a hair cut. I have had some memorable hair styles in my time but over the last few years my hair just seems to oscillate from short to long. Well I got my hair cut today and the previous hair cut occured at the beginning of June. It was getting quite shaggy and hard to manage. It had many blonde highlights which i recieved from the sun (what little of it there was) this summer. I was sad to see them go. I went to a new Barber on Easter Road and the guy who cut my hair was great. He reminded me of when I was 17 and I first went to see Frank, the guy who cuts my hair in Toronto.
The first time I had my hair cut by Frank, Was about 1 month after I had My tumor removed. My hair was crazy because the surgons had shaved half of my head. Well, my mom brought me to her hairstylist, Frank, and said, “what can you do?”. Well, there wasn’t much he could do. He cut the hair that was still there but lets just say that I had a punk hair style once again for a while. Well, I liked talking to frank and he had cool hair himself. I liked talking to him about different hair products I should use. Anyways, whenever I am in Toronto, I always go to get my hair cut by Frank.
That first time Frank cut my hair, he was a young (25ish yrs) Italian guy who had gone to the same high school I had gone to. Over the years, He has got married, bought a house, moved to 3 different hair salons, and has had 2 kids. He has always had cool hair and has never gave me a bad haircut. We have both aged over the years, I think He has aged better than I. And over all these years, He has never once asked me about the scar on my Head. He must know what it is from though.
Well, this new guy who cut my hair today was a young italian guy as well. Didin’t speak english as well as Frank does, but we managed to communicate about the hair style I wanted. The way he cut my hair was much like the way Frank does. CHAOTIC! You never really know how it will turn out until it is finished. You just have to have faith that it will turn out ok. It ended up turning out great and I was pleased. I hope when I get my hair cut again in 4-6 months he is still working there.
October 5, 2006
Filed under: David's Posts — David @ 8:19 pm Comments 5
Guess what my wonderful wife did for me while she was in Canada? She organised various family members to chip in and purchase me an IPOD Nano. It is very cool. It is one of the new nanos and has twice the memory than the one I originally asked for. I would just like to say thanks to all of you who chipped in. I really appreciate the gift. And Kudos to Neyir for all the organisation.
The nano is paper thin compared to the old nanos and has a 24hour battery life.
It is sweet… I was getting sick of pandora.com
Thanks again everyone, and Isn’t Neyir and awsome wife?
