Without further ado...

the life list

1. Write a book
2. Learn a new alphabet
3. Learn another language fluently
4. Become an ex-pat
5. Own my own home
6. Visit all fifty states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming)
7. Visit all thirteen Canadian provinces and territories (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Bruinswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Yukon Territory)
8. Visit every country in the world
9. Design my own clothing
10. Sell a painting
11. Have a photograph published
12. Visit all seven continents (North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and Antartica)
13. Attend a World Cup match
14. Attend a Grand Slam match
15. Attend a game of the Stanley Cup finals
16. Attend an NFL playoff game
17. Attend an Olympic event
18. Attend a college sport playoff finals game
19. Run a 5k
20. Read a novel in another language
21. Get an advanced degree
22. See the Seven Modern Wonders of the World (Great Wall of China, Petra, Christ the Reedemer, Machu Picchu, Chicen Itza, Roman Colesium, Taj Mahal and Great Pyramid at Giza--honorary candidate)
23. Visit London, Paris and Rome at Christmas
24. See the Northern Lights
25. Go skydiving
26. Visit the Grand Canyon
27. Go to Oktoberfest
28. Learn to fly
29. Plant a tree
30. Stand on Four Corners
31. Go to space
32. Learn to sail
33. Climb a mountain
34. Learn to surf
35. Swim with sharks
36. Go dog sledding
37. Learn to ski or snowboard
38. Jump off a waterfall
39. Experience zero gravity
40. Bet on a sporting event
41. Get my fortune told
42. Road trip across the US from one coast to the other
43. See koala bears in their natural habitat
44. See polar bears in their natural habitat
45. Go whale watching
46. Take an Artic cruise in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres
47. Take the train across Canada
48. Ride the TranSiberian railway
49. Go to Carnivale in Venice
50. Own a digital SLR
51. See the Pyramids
52. Visit Easter Island
53. Go on a safari in Africa
54. Visit the 30 "global cities" of the world (New York City, London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Singapore, Chicago, Toronto, Seoul, Washington D.C., Beijing, Brussels, Madrid, San Francisco, Sydney, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, Shanghai, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Mexico City, Zurich, Dubai, Istanbul, Boston, Rome)
55. Ride in a hot air balloon
56. Eat a five star restaurant
57. Take an Alaskan cruise
58. Drive the Alaskan Highway
59. Meet a US president
60. Adopt a pet from a shelter
61. Get a tattoo
62. Open a champagne bottle with a sword
63. Hug an inukshuk
64. See the Mojave Desert airline "graveyard"
65. Fly First Class on an airline

(updated 4/21/2014)

While the cat snores...

Tomorrow is New Years Eve and I'm sitting here at the dining table listening to Jean, the chubby cat, snore, rolling pennies (that is, putting pennies into rolls) and contemplating the future.

Why am I rolling pennies you ask?  Well, for anyone that knows me, I think pennies are absolutely worthless when they're by themselves.  Apparently a lot of other people feel that way too, so at work, we just ignore the pennies and throw them in huge buckets in the office.  We've had two buckets (plus some cups) full of pennies basically since I started working at the coffee shop three months ago... today I found out that anyone can take them home, put them in rolls, then take to the bank and keep the change!  So, I took home a bucket and a cup of pennies.  They were super heavy getting home, but now that I am here I am so glad I have them!  So far I have rolled $10 and I'm not even through one of the bags...  It may only end up being $20 or $30, but its more than I have now and only for a little time investment.  As I said, pennies individually are worthless, pennies in buckets are better than tips.

Thursday is the start of a fresh year, but I don't really believe in resolutions.... they work for some people, but not for me.  Instead, I think I will make my life list public and track my progress in accomplishing some of the things I want to do in my life.  I started a life list sometime last April or May... May 31 is the first time I dated a list, and it already had 50 items on it.  At some point over the next few days I will post the list.  The new year will also bring posts about things I want to accomplish that are 2009-specific (kinda like resolutions, only not).

Until then, I'll go back to rolling the pennies and listening to the chubster snoring!

One hundred words for snow

It's a popular urban legend that the Inuit have a hundred words for snow.  In fact, they have about the same amount of words the English language does.  Our most basic word is, of course, snow.  But then we have things like blizzard, slush, sleet and flurry which are all ways that provide further explanation of the same concept: snow.  

According to an article at State of the Canadian Cryosphere:

[Boaz] claims Inuits have four distinct root words for snow: aput "snow on the ground", gana "falling snow," piqsirpoq "drifting snow" and qimuqsuq "a snow drift".

So all those hundreds and indefinite amount of words relating to snow are derived from the four basic roots, same as most languages.   Further reading here.

Exciting xmas blog post!

Hello all. (and for those that care--I know there are some of you--Happy Christmas!)

My day was fairly uneventful... just another day off, except I put on a Santa hat and plugged in Christmas lights. But there's still snow outside (now there's at least a 18 inches on my balcony) and the fire is still on. I cleaned, did laundry, video chatted with my family (including Mom, Dad, Jack and the Michiganders (Celeste, Barbara and Tuko) who had just arrived into Lubbock!) and basically bummed around. The oven is still broken and I still have very little food (and am still feeling too lazy to go out).

Since I have no tv, and therefore can't sit around watching mindless shows, I've had to find other things to do to occupy my time at home. Aside from reading, the computer is generally my first choice (I don't have a lot of hobbies and growing bonsai really isn't that time consuming) but there are only so many things I can do on my favorite sites. And since I'm also not one to sit around and watch YouTube videos or Facebook stalk all day, I've had to search for more things.

So, I've been downloading random games to play. I've downloaded/purchased quite a few in the past... this past summer I really enjoyed Plant Tycoon for a couple of weeks, and of course games like Oregon Trail, Zeus and the various Nancy Drews always make for great entertainment. So of the 10-15 or so I've downloaded, most I've given up on because they're so bad, others I beat rather quickly and then there are a very select few which have not only kept me entertained, but I will probably continue to play for awhile... at least until I beat them.

The first is BigFish Games' My Tribe.... its a real time game sort of like the Sims (only a MUCH more basic version). You have people, you tell them to fish, farm, gather wood, harvest stone, build, research, etc etc and they will continue to do so, whether the game is running or not. Babies grow up without you having to watch their every step and their lives go on. This will run while I'm doing other things, and I can come back, make some adjustments and let it go! I love it.

The second is Sandlot Games' Westward III: Gold Rush.... Kind of like Zeus or Civilization... except you're one person who goes on various side quests and follows a story line, while growing a town and providing resources for the citizens.

Next I really enjoy is BigFish Games' Home Sweet Home: Christmas Edition... I love games where you get to design and get points for doing what the customer wants, this one has the added twist of having to build the redesigned room as well. I'm over halfway through the levels, but its enjoyable and when I'm finished I will definitely go back and play the last 2 editions.

Finally, IWin and BigFish Games' Fashion Star... fun for the same reasons as the last game, you have an objective, you design a photo shoot to match those objectives, get points and continue up the levels! I will be done with this one pretty soon, but still fun nonetheless.

This games are great, since I don't have much of an attention span and like the games to be over with fairly quickly (I won't play ANY game for hundrends or thousands of hours) these are perfect. I've downloaded and couple more and hopefully they will provide some entertainment as well.

I guess I could have a more exciting life and more exciting things to blog about than computer games. But alas, no craziness here.

Environment Canada: "No snowman-making weather with this kind of snow."

Today I got stuck in the snow.  Twice.

It all started when I had to be at work at 5:30 am to let in another girl.  Getting out of my apartment parking was fine... while driving I did a little slipping and sliding but luckily the snowplows had made at least 1 round and there weren't many other people around.  The problem was when I had to park.  Vancouver got 26 cm of snow yesterday.  That's over 10 inches... almost a FOOT of snow!  Well I got stuck.  As I ran into the shop, in tears, Ease was already there and helped me shovel and move my car so it wasn't blocking the alley. 

That put me in a terrible mood.

Since it took Ease and I almost 45 mins to get me in a legit position to leave my car, we opened pretty late.  I didn't have to bake as much.  Which meant I got to go home earlier...  when one of the delivery guys showed up he taught me the best way to get my car un-stuck.  Since he grew up in Ontario, I figured he knew what he was talking about.

But, I couldn't get my car out.  Finally, after another 20 mins of shoveling, hot water and manuevering (luckily I wore my rain boots today so my feet weren't soaking like yesterday), I was able to move.  Then I got stuck getting out of the alley.  FINALLY I made it to Main St. (the snow plows had been riding up and down all morning dropping salt) and made it home without further incident.  

I've seen snow, and driven in snow, but never THIS MUCH snow.  To help me make my point of exactly how much snow there is lying around, I bring you Gordon, my foot tall Texas garden gnome.

Here is the snow on my balcony outside my room:

Here is Gordon hanging out in the snow:

Close up:

That, my friends, is Gordon in 9 inches of snow.  On my balcony.  It's not much better outside in the alleys, side streets and the like.  Here are two pictures of it snowing outside my window.  The first is from the first snowfall since I've been here, from last week, and the second is from yesterday.

The first is fairly light, the second is fairly heavy.  Also, yesterday when I came out from work, my car was covered in between 3 and 4 inches of snow.  That was fun getting that off.  Its supposed to be a picture perfect white Christmas here... maybe I will venture out on xmas day and take photos, maybe not.  All I know is that for now my car is NOT leaving its garage!  Even if it takes me 2 hrs to get to work and home this next week.

It snowed up until 9 or so this morning and will start again tomorrow.  People are shovelling sidewalks like crazy, but we're running out of places to put the snow.  Melt please?

Holiday snowstorm

Winter rolls in coast to coast with blustering snow, high winds, severe cold

The Great White North is living up to its name.

Winter debuted Sunday with boisterous displays of heavy snow, powerful winds and numbing cold across the country. Forecasters are predicting Christmas will look much the same.

"I would dare say if you're in a satellite looking down on Canada, it would be white from coast to coast to coast and it would be frozen," said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

"There's no area that can say that winter hasn't really arrived."

(. . .)

In Vancouver, snow began falling Saturday night and continued into Sunday, with up to 20 cm of snow expected in some areas by day's end.

(. . .)

Those dreaming of a white Christmas will get their wish - mostly.

While Yuletide will likely be a rare postcard perfect in Vancouver - with more snow expected on top of what is already on the ground - forecasters said it was possible that parts of Ontario and the East Coast may get an influx of slightly milder temperatures and even rain.

(story from the Canadian Press, photo from the Vancouver Sun)

6 inches of snow??  This is crazy!  It does NOT do this in BC.  Add on top of that the fact that I have to be at work at 5:30 am tomorrow (as I did today) and am not looking forward to that at all!  Today was rough enough, but tomorrow will only be worse... luckily I am off on Tuesday and close on Wednesday... hopefully the buses will be running by then, and have Christmas day off.  I really am not a fan of this snowstorm.  Hopefully it will come to an end soon.

Dividends!

One of the most exciting things (to me) about owning shares in mutual funds (and therefore stocks) is dividends.  Since I only started my Roth IRA in December 2007, this is my first year to experience them... and it was so exciting to see my shares grow by $250!  I was able to get almost 21 shares at the current prices.  It's not a whole lot, but its nice to wach my investments grow.

Happy 2008 to me!

On another note, tomorrow is the darkest day of the year (woo 8 hrs of sunlight!) AND a storm is supposed to be hitting Vancouver.  It's been really, really cold lately... the lowest was -13 this morning, but hopefully since sunlight will start increasing soon, so will the temperature!