Random Musings and Nicknacks

The report card, so far, on my main New Year’s resolutions:

• Post to ourlog once every two days:
  B – Overall, I’ve mostly hit this, but in the last two weeks I did miss several posts.
• Post to flickr once every three days:
  B – Same observation as Ourlog
• Drink no more than two glasses of wine a day:
  A- – In 8 weeks I count 25 bottles missing from our cellar; that’s one more than the goal. Considering this has covered Chinese New Year and Valentine’s celebrations, I’d say an extra 0.1 bottles a week isn’t bad!
• Organize my task list, and keep up to date with GTD:
  C- – I was good for two weeks, and I promise I will get back to it…

Interestingly I notice the one goal that I’m really missing is the one that’s not S.M.A.R.T. … I think the problem might be with the way I set it up.

My personal contribution to Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday…

Happy Birthday to you
You belong in a zoo
You look like a monkey
And evolved from one too

Thank you, thank you. I’m here all night.

Please (throw the ball or feed me or let me out or something)

I’ll admit it, because it is very difficult to hide — I am an engineer at heart. There is very little that I won’t find some way to try and experiment, quantify, and measure.
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From What the Duck…

Some shows have lobbies outside to wait. In Vegas, you get bars…

Some day I have to remember ro write the story of the drug bust (I assume) next to our unit while we were there. I almost forgot about it!

Ling and I were talking the other day about a change in habit that we only just realized — we don’t eat out anywhere near as often as we used to. In fact, where it used to be at least once a week we are probably now more in the range of once a month.

What changed? We thought that maybe it was the change to Tim’s schedule that he was no longer going into Vancouver every day, so we weren’t running around as much, but that didn’t make sense — we stopped eating out last year, when he was still going to school and playing soccer in Vancouver.

Then we realized — it was the freezer we bought last year. Most of out meals out were days when we came home tired, lazy, and didn’t want to cook anything. So we’d go buy something. These days, when we come home like that there is always something in the freezer — dumplings, lasagne, meatballs, something that we can cook with no effort.

Its amazing to see how significantly something like that can change your habits!

Mommy was so nice to me yesterday! After she left for work in the morning, I realized she had left a gift for me (of course it was a gift, it was sitting right there, and nobody else wanted it).

There was an entire soup bowl full of gravy on the counter. She’s so nice.

I wanted to be just as nice, because daddy was still sleeping upstairs, so I drank it as quietly as I could, and left it on the counter. Unfortunately I rattled the dish just a little bit before I was completely done, and woke daddy up. Then he got mad at me (he’s so cranky when he wakes up, not nice like mommy).

He ran downstairs and told me I was a bad dog, so I tried to show him how nice I was, I gave him back some of the gravy, so he could have some! I actually offered him some of my own present, from my own stomach, and he just threw it out!

I’ll never understand him

Ling and I made a wonderful discovery this weekend — our house is bigger than we realized! That’s always a nice thing to discover, but how could you possibly live in a place for 3 years before discovering that?
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The crock pot we got for Christmas has been very useful. We’ve been using it weekly (usually set up Sunday night to cook all day Monday). Since slow cooker meals typically last two days or longer, that means 1/4 of our meals have been done in it!

That’s why it was a disaster yesterday when the insert cracked! [1] After all, the next slab of meat was already defrosting in the fridge.
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“Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I am.”
“Okay, here you go.”

Tom lifted my feet slowly up over the jagged fence. There was still fresh paint on them, some flakes of it rubbing on my buttoned shirt. I don’t think he was strong enough to lift me. I suddenly could feel the force below my feet weaken. Uh-oh.

“Oops!”

Tom slipped on his grip. My stomach suddenly met up with the fence’s ragged edge.
Ow.
I scrabbled furiously to push my weight on the other side of the divider, grabbing at whatever I could, I accidentally threw my fingers at a rusty nail.. Fortunately the slight tip managed to get me on the other side. Tumbling, I felt the soft grass beneath me. Ground, at last. My finger felt wet, it was bleeding. I need a bandage later.
I stared at a soft blue sky for a second. Suddenly I remembered what I came here for.
“Have you got it yet,” came a shout from the other side.
“No, be patient. I don’t see you getting your stomach gouged out by some fence.”

No reply.
I looked around, I didn’t see anything red, except a old shack. I doubt it ended up in there. That thing was barely standing up, if the wind blew harder that thing it probably would fall down.
This wasn’t a very nice yard. Yes, the grass was green and evenly cut, but the decorations made the landscape disgusting. The plants were all dead in the fenced off garden. I scratched my chin.
Hmm… where could it be?

“I don’t see it!” I gave a cry.
“Well, the ball did go over the fence, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s there somewhere! Keep looking!”

I don’t see anything! Clench my teeth. Tighten my fist. This was getting nowhere.
“Hey, did you hear that?”
I listened around. A slight creak. What was that?
The back door quickly flung open. An old lady sprung out, she was holding a bright red ball.

“Are you looking for this?”

“Yes,” I gulped.