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!

Union Jack Pillow

(Union Jack Pillow from Cox&Cox)

Italian crime novels

I've been a huge fan of author Donna Leon for awhile.  My mom discovered her several years ago, and when she discovered she wrote mysteries based in Venice, she just had to get me Death at La Fenice one Christmas.  Since reading the first one, I've read every single one I could get my hands on.   All 15 I've run across.  Half.com is one of my best friends when it comes to books, so that is how I got a lot of them.  Today I decided to check up on some of my favorite authors... since Leon released a book last year I figured she was due for a new one soon, and I knew another one my favorite authors, Andrea Camilleri, who's Inspector Montalbano series is based on an Italian policeman (in Sicily) has a recently translated book being released in Feb.  He writes in Italian.

I checked Amazon, saw the new Leon novel will be released in April, but I also ran across a list of Leon's novels in chronological order.  Even though I knew I'd read them all, I checked anyway.  I knew wrong.  The list had 2 books on it I'd heard of, but assumed they were the British titling of a book I'd read.  Wrong again.  Here is the list per Wikipedia:

1. Death at La Fenice (1992)
2. Death in a Strange Country (1993)
3. The Anonymous Venetian (1994) aka Dressed for Death
4. A Venetian Reckoning (1995) aka Death and Judgment
5. Acqua Alta (1996) aka Death in High Water
6. The Death of Faith (1997) aka Quietly in Their Sleep
7. A Noble Radiance (1997)
8. Fatal Remedies (1999)
9. Friends in High Places (2000)
10. A Sea of Troubles (2001)
11. Wilful Behaviour (2002)
12. Uniform Justice (2003)
13. Doctored Evidence (2004)
14. Blood from a Stone (2005)
15. Through a Glass Darkly (2006)
16. Suffer the Little Children (2007)
17. The Girl of His Dreams (2008)
18. About Face (2009)

Books nos. 10 and 11 I haven't read and I can't find on any of my usual sites in the States/Canada (except for over $100 USD... no way).   So I decided to check Amazon UK and lo and behold, was able to find them both, in paperback, for only $30 USD including shipping to Canada!  I absolutely love finding books I haven't yet read by my favorite authors.

So, I decided to check on Andrea Camilleri.  Again, this is Wikipedia's list:

1. The Shape of Water - 2002 (La forma dell’acqua - 1994)
2. The Terracotta Dog - 2002 (Il cane di terracotta - 1996)
3. The Snack Thief - 2003 (Il ladro di merendine - 1996)
4. The Voice of the Violin - 2003 (La voce del violino - 1997)
5. Excursion to Tindari - 2005 (La gita a Tindari - 2000)
6. The Scent of the Night - 2005 (L’odore della notte - 2001)
7. Rounding the Mark - 2006 (Il giro di boa - 2003)
8. The Patience of the Spider - 2007 (La pazienza del ragno - 2004)
9. The Paper Moon - 2008 (La Luna di Carta - 2005)
10. August Heat - 2006 (La Vampa d'Agosto - 2006)
11. The Sphinx's Wings - 2006 (Le Ali della Sfinge - 2006)
12. The Sand Path - 2007 (La pista di Sabbia - 2007)
13. The Potter's Field - 2008 (Il campo del vasaio - 2008)
14. The Age of Doubt - 2008 (L'età del dubbio) - 2008

August Heat is the novel that is being released in English in February... I'm so excited I can't wait!  I have contemplated trying to read his novels in Italian, but would have to get a hold of one first (hello Amazon UK!).  Maybe a future project...  As it is, I am anxiously awaiting his next release in English and the Donna Leon books in the mail!

Title? No thanks.

I got my hair cut today... VERY exciting.  I think the last time I had it cut was March or something!  Haley, my stylist, was fantastic.  I didn't really know what I wanted done with hair, I just knew I didn't want it chopped off.  Luckily, Haley didn't want to chop my hair off either... she didn't even want to cut off up to my shoulders!  So she layered, gave it more life, gave me a little blurb of bangs and it was finished.  I love it and am so excited to finally have my hair feeling healthy and light again!

The weather has been extremely pleasant here for the past several months, sitting around 10 degrees celsius.  However, yesterday is started getting colder, today was pretty close to zero and tomorrow it is supposed to snow... OH NO!  The mountains on the North Shore (I have got to learn the name of the range) have snow all over their tips... very pretty.  Here's a shot from one of my apartment's patios facing northwest.

We have a tree!

Things I love (Part I): Personal finance edition

• I love the PearBudget online spreadsheet because, through it, I have discovered that I actually live within my means and often have extra money at the end of the month to put other places.  I am able to see where my money goes (okay, I really like to buy clothes) and where I *think* my money goes but it actually doesn't (eating out).
  
  
• I love the Yodlee Moneycenter, because: a) I can track all of money between all my accounts (and when it leaves my accounts), b) I can track my Canadian accounts, and c) I can see my net worth and where my assets/liabilities are and what percentage of my total those are (for instance, my retirement account is currently 75% of my assets).  Well, I love it for more than reasons a, b and c but those are just the ones I want to mention.
  
  
• I love the Get Rich Slowly blog, because not only does blogger JR have great posts and insights about things related to personal finance, he has a great following of thoughtful and learned readers who are able to provide additional insight and information.  The forums are fantastic and people are so willing to help others out.  I love.

"CASH ONLY"

After spending a wonderful 5 days with my mom when she came to visit (maybe I will do a post on that someday?), I have been back to the real world of work.  I baked Sunday and then took Mom to the airport.  I baked Monday, helped a co-worker shop for shoes/accessories, crashed from pure exhaustion and did nothing yesterday.  Then today, all hell broke loose.

I should have known when I woke up this morning that it was going to be a rough day.  Although really, things were going pretty smoothly then.  I made it to work on time.  But when I walked up to the door at 5:15 am there was a big sign that said "CASH ONLY."  Oh dear, the tills are broken again.  But hey!  We can just call Halo and they will fix it.  Au contraire.

The 6:30 supervisor was late, which was bad for me since I was feeling slightly frazzled already.  Everything progressed fairly smoothly (no temper tantrums yet) and before I knew it it was break time.  On my break I bought an aranciata in a bottle and discovered it wasn't a twist top.  I should have known then that it was going to be a really rough day.

When I came back after my break, not only were the cash registers still not accepting debit, credit or gift cards, but now they didn't accept cash either.  They were BRO-KEN.  So, instead, the two people on till had broken out the good ole' pen, paper and a calculator.  So from 9:45 to 1:15 we did everything.  By hand. It was a great excerise of the memory (to remember product prices) and the mind (to calculate change).  We also had to code the drinks by hand and run them over to the bar for the baristas.  Luckily, everything was running pretty smoothly once we developed a system.  One person wrote down the order, added it up and took care of the money; one person wrote the drinks down and ran to the bar; and the last took care of things like food, drip coffees and whole beans.  

It was a very taxing, hilarious and all-around sort-of fun day.  That is, if I don't have to repeat it again tomorrow.

Fa la la la la

While the Christmas season officially started on Friday in the States post-Thanksgiving... by that standard the holiday season should been in full swing here in the Great White North since Canadian Thanksgiving on Oct 13.  Yes, that's OCTOBER.

Fortunately, those living north of the 49th parallel tend to wait awhile and "Christmas" officially started yesterday.  I am not excited.

What I am excited about, however, is the new Christmas blend we got in at the coffee shop yesterday.  It is definitely my new favorite coffee and I can't wait to take home my first lb. next week!  Since I forsee a lot of alone time the last two weeks of December, a nice cup of Christmas blend should keep my company.  Maybe a good book or two as well?

I wish I had some photos to share of the holiday season gearing up here in the Lower Mainland, but alas, I do not.  However, since Mom will be arriving in about 23 hrs (!) I will be breakng out the camera and shooting some photos.  My dad gave me a tutorial via Skype tonight on camera settings, so hopefully that will help me take some nicer photos than I have been taking in the past!  If I can take nice photos with the point and shoot, I will definitely feel more vindicated in wanting (and eventually obtaining) that digital SLR I've been coveting.

On another note, the work Christmas party is in two weeks on Granville Island!  Went dress shopping Saturday post-poutine (best in Vancouver!) and got great deals at Barefoot Contessa  on Commercial.  I bought a cute, lace on black strapless cocktail dress after trying on at least a dozen!  I had a difficult time picking between it (called the "Natalie Portman" dress) and another, slightly sexier satin sheath dress which had gorgeous details!  I absoultely adored the shop and plan to return again soon next time I need some clothing!