Scott's book club

I've recently realized that I must have signed up to be a member of Scott's book club at some point. For the past two summers, I've exclusively read books recommended by Scott and lent to me by Scott. Last summer I read The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons (both by Dan Brown). And this summer I've read A Beautiful Mind and The Code Book. I highly recommend anyone joining Scott's book club. I have yet to be even slightly disappointed by one of his recommendations.

Happy Birthday to Me, yesterday

Yesterday was my 25th birthday (you already knew this if you read Tom's blog). At midnight I got my presents from Tom. He gave me an iPod shuffle, an iPod shuffle battery pack and an iPod USB power adapter. I was really surprised and I really like it.

To celebrate my birthday, Tom and I went to my parents place in Venosta. We arrived before lunch and stayed until after dinner. My mother made me one of my favorite cakes, a jell-o cake. Tom and I had a good visit in Venosta. When we returned to my apartment there was a little package on the table with my name on it. I didn't have a clue who it was from. So I opened it up and it was a nylon bag that said "Les appartements Jacques Cartier". Apparently my apartment building gives birthday presents to it's tenants (nothing expensive or personalized, of course).

This is by far the stupidest thing I have ever heard (and I've heard a lot of stupid shit).

I got an email today from one of the secretaries at Carleton. It was a mass email sent to all graduate students. In the email it says that "you must be a fully funded graduate student to apply for a TA". How does that even make a little bit of sense? So graduate students who receive any where from 15 000$ to 17 500$ per year in grants for going to school are the only ones who can apply for a teaching assistant position where you can make an extra 8000$? Let me say it again, how does that even make a little bit of sense? This is really dumb.

Home from our travels

Tom and I arrived home from Lefroy, Ontario on Wednesday afternoon. We had been visiting my two friends (and former roommates), Dave and Crystal. See Dave's description of our visit here. See Tom's description of our visit here.

We had a really good time. We went to Niagara Falls. We saw the falls (of course) and walked around a little while Dave was looking for a geocache that proved to be impossible to get to. We also went to Ripley's Believe It or Not. Earlier in our visit to Niagara Falls we had lunch at Denny's. I have never been so disappointed by a restaurant in my life. I had Zesty Nachos and Dave and Tom each had the sampler. I was only able to eat about half of the nachos because there was so much grease on them that half of them were soggy. And Tom and Dave were both disappointed with the sampler. Not only were we disappointed but the prices were obsurdly high. For Tom and I, it was about 40$ (including tip) and we only ordered appetizers! Never again will I eat at Denny's.

A good portion of our visit was spent geocaching with Dave (see Dave's description of what it is here). We had a good time working out the puzzles and searching for them even if we weren't successful with all of them.

We also went to Wonderland. We had fun, went on some awesome rides, avoided long line ups (for the most part) and managed to not get sunburnt (applying sunscreen 3 times probably helped).

And finally on Wednesday morning Dave, Tom and I had lunch with my friend Sara at Cora's (aka Chez Cora's in Quebec). It was good to see her since last time I did was at Dave and Crystal's engagement party and that is now over two years ago.

Why I love Jon Stewart....

Tonight on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart pointed out how ridiculous it is that people are referring to what happened with Flight 358 as a miracle. He first quoted the definition of miracle ("An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act God"). He comically pointed out that if anything was an act of god it was the lightning strike and that it was satan's work that saved them. But his real point was why can't we give credit to the flight attendants, the pilots and the passengers for acting appropriately in an emergency situation.

Paying with a cheque.... whaaaaat?!?!

Last month when Tom and I were visiting with some of his friends in Vermont, one of Tom's friends decided to buy a t-shirt at JC Penney. She opened up her wallet which had her cheque book in it and started writing the cashier a cheque. I don't know about anyone else, but this seemed really foreign to me. I can't imagine going into Zellers or Walmart or any store and trying to pay with a cheque. I'm sure that this is because we have interac here in Canada and they don't in the states. But it's still weird.

Travelling

The last two weeks Tom and I have been doing some travelling and visiting people. We went to Venosta to visit briefly with my parents and pick up Tom's car. We were in Williamstown, VT to visit with Tom's parents and a few of Tom's friends. We had a belated birthday dinner for Tom with his parents at a restaurant called Julio's in Montpelier, VT (where we first tried Magic Hat #9 beer). Then on the weekend of July 22nd to 24th we went to East Norwalk, CT to visit Tom's uncle Fred and aunt Nancy. We went sailing and had some lobster. We had a really good time. The following Wednesday Tom and I went to St Johnsbury to have lunch with his aunt Bernie, who was visiting from Staten Island and other aunts and uncles I had not met before. Then on July 30th we went to Tom's parents place to have lunch with Tom's parents, his aunt Bernie and Tom's sister Pam (the only sibling of Tom's I had not met). In the afternoon, Tom and I decided to take his parents row boat out to Rood pond. And finally yesterday, Tom and I, on our way back to Hull stopped in Montreal to drop off the last of the stuff for my sister. We get a short break from travelling until Friday when we head off to Lefroy, Ontario where we'll visit with my former roommates, Dave and Crystal.

Temporary Blog

Since my blog has been down for a while and I don't know when it will be back up again, I decided to create a new one to fill the void until my old one is fixed.

More posts to come.