Where'd Summer go?

Here it is mid-August already. The sun is starting to go down earlier already and I'm noticing it's actually starting to get fresh in the evening. It all goes by so fast in Canada. Mind you, during the day now it's around 23 or 24 which truthfully is perfect. Those days at 32 are just too hot although we'll probably get a few more of them before it's all over.

Life's been kinda blah lately. At work I feel stressed and a little threatened. I really wish I could just go out and find a new job somedays. Nothing's really all that bad but I'm tired of doing the same old thing everyday... there's no new and interesting challenges and I feel like I'm in a rut there. Nothing ever changes for the better for me.

Personally.. well I've had some successed. I've lost around 10kg over the past 4 months. Good stuff, I'm back to my weight that I was in my 20s. I actually accomplished my objective and I have to say if feels just great. I'm eating real foods as opposed to chemically enhanced packaged process or fast foods that's so readily available over here. I've made a list of basic supper types and how many times I'm going to have that eact month... so something like Beef 2 times, Fish 5 times, Porc 4 times, Vegetarian 6 times, pasta 2 times, Chicken 6 times, Seafood 5 times... and what this did was dicipline me and gave me a good variety. So when I go to restaurant I know now I can better control beef and pasta intake than a restaurant can plus they are simple and easy to make at home so I have fish, seafood or veal when I eat out. I also cut down on breads, potatoes, rice and sugary foods but I upped things like couscous, tabouli and vegetarian sides. Then with my ipod and goods half hour or hour long podcast I either go on a walk or on the tredmill everyday... so I get some excercise I wasn;t getting enough of before... shre enough it worked without me really reducing my food intake all that much and getting a nice walk or feel good excercise everyday.

What was really amazing is that once I switched to whole grain real and fresh foods I found it satisfied my body's needs much better than fast food and processed food. My body's cells don't know what to do with a lot of them because there are no or few nutrients in them... so you end up getting hungry again faster and therefore eat more sooner. Your liver just processes the rest in many cases. Now I never get hungry until my next meal even though I ate the same amount per meal as before if even less. That almost stopped overnight it was so obvious. It almost leads me to believe that some companies add in something to make you addicted or crave more of their foods. When you read the nutiritional contents of some foods it ends up being 75% chemicals.. stuff to keep it's color, somthing to add additional flavour, a chemical to keeps the foods consistency, tons of salt to preserve it, sugars in everything and often disguised under several different names, the word "fat free" in some cases then you see there's still 5% fat... the lack of revealing trans-fats... no wonder we're all so heavy.

On other fronts I took my car in for an oil change and ended up with a near $800 bill for a timing belt change. That hurt but I knew that was coming up. I'm planning to have two floors resanded and refinished then I hope to purchase a new bedroom set so the timing of this timing belt was very good.. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my old bedroom set though. I need someone to come take it away. I have no room to store it. It's hard to coordinate all this and it's expensive... but I spend more time in bed than I do in my car so well worth it.

Anyways... I really should start my day.. gotta get the lawn cut... I am trying to clean up the basement too... so much stuff to get rid of... little by little.

Summer madness

It's been a long time since I updated this site so I thought I'd throw in a few words just to keep it active. I'll try and be more diligent working on this. That being said looking over my state I can say that practically no one comes through and reads my page so if you are then you are a rare bird.. a precious stone perhaps LOL...

Well let's see what's new... A good friend of mine has a brother two years older than me who was recently diagnosed with diabetes. He is overweight, drinks too much, is under stress and work and at home and does no little or no strenuous excercise. Now I'm not as overweight as he is and I don't drink anywhere near as much as he did and my stress levels are way down in comparison but I too excercise very little... until now :) Somehow I've managed to put myself back on the healthy eating diet that I now call my Ipod Diet... thanks to that little video gadget that's sweeping my life. I've discovered Podcasts and of course I'm going crazy with them. I now have reason to walk... so I stick in my earphone and head out the door and walk for an hour everynight... then each morning at 5am... I'm on my treadmill for 45 minutes listening to the latest BBC podcast.. and I've created a food schedule that's not really a schedule rather more like a list of how many times a month I can eat fish, beef, porc, chicken and vegatarian. Limiting beef and pasta to low numbers and raising fish and vegatarian.. the result is dropping from around 202 lbs to 189... my goal is 185 and if I reach that I'd ultimately like to get down to 175 my original perfect weight. Woo Hoo!.. I'm down two belt notches as well and for once I look in the mirror and think it's starting to look ok.. not perfect by any means (that's 175 with muscle).. oh I've also starting lifting a few weights to just tighten things up. So I feel good in other words.'

Outside of that work is going ok. My personal life is ok but nothing major or special happening in either case. I was suppose to go to Europe in April but it's been postponed to September now. I might make a sidetrip if I go back. I've become very enamoured with Flickr lately.. posting a ton of pictures and meeting people from all over the world. (Alan where are you?) My cousin from New Brunswick came into Montreal last week and we met up for the first time in many years. It was great seeing her. She's had a lot of drama in her life lately. Kinda sad in the end. I might post a blog about it sometime later.

Anyways it's warm now.. summer's almost here and it's too beautiful outside to stay inside for a change. I'm going to put on my Ipod and go for a walk.. the Feast of Fools is waiting for me. I need a dose of Fausto and Mark. They interviewed Sulu from the original Star Trek, George Takei the other day... it was great :)... what a voice he has, so animated. So I'm off... Leave me some comments, I'd like to know who's dropping in :) Thanks!

YUL-ORD-GRR-ORD-YUL

Well my trip went well. It started off on the wrong foot though. I had a major argument with a client on the telephone before I left on Tuesday. The contact was so agressive and venonmous O came very close to hanging up on her. She just let out a continuous cry of insults and anger directed towards our company and eventually myself for messing up an order. I tried reasoning with her but her intent wasn't constructive anger it was destructive anger... so I let her vent and tried to calm her down only to find myself getting frusutrated with her eventually letting her go without barely speaking to her in the end. I understand people getting angry and I see the need for it everynow and then but if it's constructive in nature it helps build a relationship and find solutions. This type of destructive anger though was completely pointless, detroys relationships, solves nothing, works towards further destuction and just makes everyone feel bad.

I felt awful heading out on my plane Tuesday evening... this wouldn't get out of my head. Anyways, It got worse in Grand Rapids when I discovered we hadn't released several blocked orders that they asked to be prepared in advance. There was no way to get it all ready in time and I feared the worse today when I went into work. I was expecting all hell to break loose but instead I experienced one of those rare moments in life when everything you think about yourself and what you did actually rang true. The contact called and at first seemed afraid to talk to me then apolagized profusely for everything that happened... fearing I would have just quit our partnership in this project. I tell ya, I came damed close to it. I did talk it over with my boss in Grand Rapids and suggested long term they get someone to be a sales contact and leave me to do the technical end which is where my expertise it. He agreed so perhaps in a year or so this will happen.

For the trip however... I'll do it in pictures once Flickr is up and running again. In short though, American Airlines was excellent. The ERJ flights all went smoothly. I've come to really like that plane. It's comfortable and has nice big windows. Chicago went well. It was my first time going through American's terminal which wasn't as nice as United's but it was still pretty effective. I saw employees moving around on Segways there which was really cool.

">

I arrived in Grand Rapids near midnight and got a taxi to the Baymont Inn. The taxi driver picked up I was Canadian and had a load of questions for me about Canada. It was really interesting to see how fascinated he was with us. He wanted to know about if I wa happy about the Conservative government. He, like many Americans now, felt the need to almost apologize for their government's actions around the world.. he asked about Quebec seperation and if it made sense or would ever happen and mainly if it's still an issue. Quite cool... he asked a lot more questions than I ever imagined someone like he would.

Work down there went well. Eric was nice enough to stick by me most of time and show me around a little. I had my evaluation and it went quite well. My boss seems to think more highly of my skills than I do so that was cool. Even the CEO seemed a bit more receptive to me than normal so I felt better about that although I really do find him hot and cold.

The return was a day of watching the clock... My plan was to take Friday off and a taxi back to the airport and do it all on my own pace. My boss insisted someone drive me there so suggested I come into work in the morning...sigh... so I did that and we wrapped up fast so I ended up at GRR around 9am. My flight was at 11am. My mistake was checking in luggage. The earlier flight was there and I could have switched planes and spent some leisure time at O'Hare but I couldn't... then my 11pm flight was 40 minutes late. My connection to YUL was at 11:15 and I ended up arriving at ORD at 11:40.. plus, as always, I was at the end of the pier at G16 and my Montreal MD-80 was at the end of pier H and H17... so there I was leaping over luggage and small kids as I ran to the gate...LOL... only to find out it was delayed and the boarding process hadn't begun yet.

Boarding was a but messy. First off the flight was jammed packed and there were stand by passengers who had been there since the previous night. They boarded in Groups.. 1, 2, 3 etc..which were marked on your boarding pass. I was in group 6 for seat 9A. The trouble is many passengers had tickets with no group number marked on it. Furthermore many were unilingual French Canadians who were understandably lost. However we all board only to sit there for another 45 minutes with ATC got it's act together. The weather was ominous... very low dark clouds and some rain. Downtown Chicago was spectacular with all the low skyline hanging over the city.

The flight to Montreal was uneventful. The MD-80 really nice and quiet.. quite roomy. My seatmate was an older French Canadian who I spoke to for a bit. Service was sparse... beverages and pretzels but I have to admit they were better prtzels than usual but still they were pretzels. Montreal looked beautiful on arrival... the sun was filtering down through the clouds... I saw where I work from the plane and got a picture of it. We turned at the end of island and headed back west towards 24R... passing my house and the usual approach until we landed routinely. Customs was crowded. And Air France 777, Swiss A330 and and Air Canada A330 had landed just before us... plus I think there was an Air Transat flight too... so it was quite crowded but we did the zig zag thingy and kept moving although I was dizzy by the time I got to the customs agent. My bag was out way before I got to the luggage carrousel and shortly after I was on the Met on the way home... only to be stuck in rush hour traffic.. so no real day off.

Next month... Europe.

Spring is coming

Ok it's been a while.. Nothing spectacular has happened although it's been a stressful few weeks with work and friends.

For work - we had the big bosses up here from the US and they let go of our purchasers. It was a consolidation move to centralize purchasing in the USA. What people didn't like was the two fellas were told they no longer had employment here and were immediately escorted out of the building without even having a chance to say good bye to anyone. That's rough especially since we all worked with them for over 5 years. The reason for them going though made sense and in the end it turns out they really didn't have a good grasp of what they were doing as the US has filled in and found a mess of problems that should never have occurred. So a good thing for the company but I can't help but feel bad for them. It seems strange to not see them any more and not to have at least said good-bye.

For friends - hum. I seem to be having issues with both my best friends. One a female and one a guy. For the girl we seemed to have clashed recently over world issues.. Iraq specifically. Well, actually this clash occurred right after the Iraq invasion. She took the US side, I took Canada's position and then we locked horns to a point where we really can't discuss this anymore without raising our voices. I would imagine this is not all that uncommon... Although I've known this girl all my life and we've never argued let along clashed on anything on this scale. It's kinda sad. It seems to have now boiled over to how we see everything else and we're discovering that we really are very different people at heart. She is much more conservative, right wing and pro-business... I am really much more liberal, left of centre and pro-struggles against governments and big business.

All this came to head over a discussion about Paul McCartney coming to Canada to protest the seal hunt. Now we both object to the seal hunt but I am suspicious of big celebrities making grandiose new conferences on issues far flung from their normal environment. I wasn't aware McCartney had been doing this for years however and I guess my protests over his presence just set her off. For me I ask why Paul McCartney is concerned about seals on an ice flow off Newfoundland when his own country has just bombed the hell out of Iraq for a cause that so far has proven to be non existent. Anyways, we butted heads and it then came down to how we see the world, how well we respect each other's opinions, how well we listen to each other, do we listen to each other in fact and I suppose we were questioning our intelligence and ability to decipher the events that shape our worlds.

The sad truth is the truth these days is almost meaningless. It seems our aim is to find sources that confirm our beliefs and hope that enough people support the same sources and then it becomes the truth for us whether or not it really it. Thus the huge divide in American society and for that matter all of us that judge them on their actions. God knows everyone is judging them these days.

For the male friend... I offered him and another friend to take my Air Canada points and go on a trip somewhere in the world they fly. I have enough points to really go just about anywhere so the three of us could have a good time in some far off exotic place. First they happily accepted then they hedged... then they said they were planning a trip on their own then the last time he wanted me to go to Toronto with them to see how we all got along. Ok, looking at it like that I can see this was a mistake on my part. I should never have made this offer. I'm very disappointed in this reaction and quite frankly now I'm not sure how to get out of it would hurting anyone's feelings.... or just wait until they finally say for me to go on my own... which is depressing enough as that is. Crap.

Academy Awards

I managed to get through the Academy Awards last night. I saw the beginning, a little of the middle and came back around 10:45 for the end. Overall I enjoyed what I saw. The opening was pretty good starting with the computer generated fly into the theatre passing all the great actors and moments in movie history. Very well done. The skit about their search for a host was pretty good but what happened to Ellen?

For the films - I saw three of them this year. Good Night & Good Luck, Crash & Brokeback Mountain. I thoroughly enjoyed all three. I wasn't able to say beforehand that I strongly preferred one over the other. GN&GL was a steamy look into an era I knew nothing about and found it totally fascinating. Crash was an excellent playoff of emotions and tensions in our racially mixed world... a hard topic to broach and extrememly well done and acted and Brokeback Mountain was a powerhouse of emotional repression and an expression of realities that rarely ever get played out on the big screen. It really was an excellent year in film. Capote & Munich look like they'd easily fall into the same category of quality. So for all the losing nominees I'd surely say it was the best year to not have won one because any other year they would have blown the competition out of the water in terms of quality.

Highlights of what I saw... the opening sequence, John Stewart did a pretty good job of hosting the show and Ben Stiller desperately trying to ring some humor out of a screen screen costume. I can't imagine hosting is an easy task given all the big stars out in the audience and knowing there are over a hundred million people watching you live. Egads... Everyone looked good... there were no really big mistakes... the political side was kept low key for the most part at least from what I saw. George Clooney made some good remarks though..

I'm kinda glad Crash won though. Three cheers for independant films! It was a difficult movie to watch and it sent out a message to everyone about the reasons why we are like all are... everyone is connected and even the little things we say or do has reprecussions we never see. Glad to see it was directed and produced by a Canadian too. I guess it takes an outsider sometimes to see what we don't always see ourselves and in this case perhaps it took a Canuck to help Americans see themselves in a more realistic realistic light. So kudos to him.

Back on Track

Well I've done a little traveling the past week so I thought I'd update this blog since it's been a while. I had a colleague over from the Netherlands and we did some work here in Montreal and then headed down to Grand Rapids Michigan in the US for a couple of days before we both split up and went home. Had a great time actually.

My colleague Bart is a world traveler. He's been all over the globe and the thought of him coming to Montreal in February was sickening. This is a really great summer city, one of the best in North America in my opinion but in winter it's cold and ugly as hell with all the slush and dirty snow, pot holes and icy sidewalks. It's a living hell in some respects and the last thing I want is people coming here during this seasonal mess... but somehow I showed him around, took him to some incredible restaurants, managed to hit all the right sites and in the end he said he really loved it and wants to come back with his wife and family. So I was pleased. We also had a really great time in Grand Rapids and both of us came away impressed with the city and the people. Best of all our American colleagues as well as my colleagues here in Quebec were really nice to him and I think if anything he was surprised by how friendly everyone was. I've learned many of my Dutch colleagues have a really negative opinion of Americans and North America in general but once they actually experience it a lot of their beliefs are proven wrong and they end up liking it a lot. Perhaps not everyone but it's not as commercial, cold and tasteless as they might think. It helps to have the right person show you around too.

Sheila, I'm pleased to say is back on the mend. She had a very serious if not major case of the flu which led to pneumonia. She's still not 100% now 5 weeks later but on Saturday we went out for supper and argued politics and well I knew she was back to normal LOL! :) It's great to see.

My personal life is still as bland and boring as ever. It was nice having Bart here because it gave me something to do after work. I find the nights long and lonely and it helps to have someone to go out and do things with. Lately I've been playing around with photography and posting my pictures on Flickr. It's kinda fun and somewhat obsessive. I really struggle to get away from it some days. Oh well.. better than just watching TV I suppose. Anyways here is a random selection of some pics I've taken over the past year or two that I like. Hope you enjoy them