The roof of my car

My car's roof has been a source of much humour, and occasionally, frustration. It's now a source of loss.

When unlocking my door, it's tempting to put things on the roof as I fumble for my keys and try to free my hands. I've put many things atop my vehicle, yet I rarely remember to take them off.

When we were driving across the country, Carmella and I stopped in at Kanga's Sauna in Thunder Bay. After, I opened my door, got in, and began pulling out of the parking lot. A woman frantically stopped me, motioning to the roof. I had left my wallet up there, and a map.

In Whistler, I bought a subway sandwich after work one night, and was excited to eat it. I put it on my roof, and then forgot about it. I remembered before I got up to speed, and pulled into the taxi loop to rescue it. I was happy to provide entertainment for the taxi driver pulling up behind me.

Another day, I loaded Celeste into the trunk and took her to the dirt jumps. After riding for an hour, I loaded the bike back in the trunk and set off for home. I heard a noise, and decided to investigate. There was a friendly skateboarder frantically skating toward me, with my bike helmet in her hand. I had put it on the roof and forgotten about it! It slipped off when I took a turn.

I've recently misplaced a pair of generic black skate shoes that I wore to work. I cannot find them anywhere. When I think about it though, I remember placing them on my car's roof before I got in, and thinking that even though the roof was wet, it was OK because I had the shoes in one of those fabric grocery bags. I had them in a bag because I was wearing my new winter boots and was leaving work. I had a Nature's Path granola bar in the bag too. Or is it Nature Valley? The ones in the green wrapper that are fairly healthy.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure my shoes are on the side of the highway somewhere, along with the granola bar. I hope someone who was both hungry and needing a pair of shoes found them both in the bag. I'm not too sad about the loss, because they weren't my favourite shoes anyway. But I'm disappointed that I continue to place things on the roof and have not learned my lesson! And it is one less pair of shoes that I have to wear now.

I'm thinking of getting some red electrical tape and making a big "X" on the portion of roof just above the driver's side door. That could remind me to not put anything up there. It'll make my car seem broken and in disrepair though, so that's unfortunate. I think I'll just try and remember not to put anything up there, since I've lost my shoes forever now. I don't want to lose anything else.

Morris

So this is the cat that was named after our Morris.

Good old Morris. Cats are popular on the internet, doing things like jumping into boxes. It got me thinking about the real Morris, so I googled his name.




I bet the Morris on TV advertising cat food couldn't climb a ladder!



In other news, I recently finished Douglas Coupland's latest offering, Generation A. I loved the first half of it, but the second was disappointing. I find Coupland does really well creating characters and his word use is excellent. This all didn't matter by the second half, when the plot fell apart and began dragging on and on.

At one point, we're told that one character was befriending other characters so he could eat their brains (because they had some drug-like quality due to mutation or something) looking for the ultimate high. Silly and unbelievable.

The book centred around a future where people are overly reliant on technologies like computers and cell phones, and as a result look to drugs to make them feel better.

I cannot recommend this book as a whole. But if anyone is looking to read half a book, I give the first hundred or so pages of this tome four bookmarks out of five.

Manatee

I came across this picture in my travels today, and found it humourous.

I wait

I am stuck in my work's parking lot, waiting.

I'm waiting for the tow truck to pull a 4x4 pickup out of the ditch. They're blocking the road.

At least a foot of snow has fallen in the last eight hours since my shift started. It's still snowing too!

It'll be an incredible mid-week day up the mountain tomorrow, for those with passes!

I've never seen this much snow fall when I've been awake. When I arrived at work, I could see the parking lot's pavement. At 7pm there were probably four inches of snow I needed to shovel off the stairs. Two hours later, another four inches. Now, at the end of my shift, there's at least a foot.

It'll be fun to hear the stories of people who ride the mountain tomorrow!

Mountain to open early

The big news around here is that the Mountain will be opening early this year. Since I've opted to forgo buying a pass again this year, this doesn't mean a lot to me. However, it's good news for Whistler as everyone is always happy when the mountain opens and the mood lightens as the ever-present rain turns to snow. The mountain will open November 14th.

We have snow in the valley, and there is much more snow up top. Here's what it looks like just outside my house.

A bike video (that I didn't make).

Check out this awesome bike video. Most videos these days revolve around jumping, tricks, and racing. It's very rare that a good video is made about "normal" bike riding.

I like this video because it reminds me why I wanted to move to BC in the first place. The video depicts great wildlife and scenery, good biking, and lots of trees and nature. It was filmed recently on Vancouver Island.

It's less than three minutes long. This video will make you want to go out and ride your bike, even if you don't have one!



If it's slow to appear, or doesn't at all, you can find it here.

In other news, I've decided to disable comments for a bit as I've got some spam in the comments section. I may open it up later once the spambots move along.

Practice video

Carmella was looking into what she'd need to apply for her Psych Masters program, and one of the things she'd need was a video. She would need to include numerous things in the video, such as why she wanted to enter the program, her views on depression, and she'd also have to display her counselling skills.

I figured I should learn to use the video editing software on my computer, so I threw together an example video, learning to use it in the process. You can watch it! I made it a month ago while it was still sunny.

Watch the video!

I had fun making it, so I want to try making other ones in the future.

In other news, I have decided to discontinue blogging every day. I think I'll just post things that are actually interesting and worthy of sharing. I don't want to stock my blog with useless, uninteresting filler.

Internet

Looks like someone hasn't locked their wireless internet signal in this townhouse complex, which means I get to use it free of charge. Excellent.

We'll see how long it lasts for.

Moved

So I've moved into my new place, but just had enough time to put everything in my room and then run to work.

I was able to move pretty much everything in one load, in my new car. It sure was easy to do by myself, now that I have wheels! I didn't need to use any boxes either. I had enough sport bags, suitcases, and rubbermaid things to get it done. I used a number of reuseable grocery bags too.



My room is bigger than the one I moved out of, and is only missing a chair to read in. It has a rickety shelving unit that I'll put my books on, and it has shelving in the closet for my clothes. I'm pretty happy about that, as I won't have to buy any extra shelving or dressers. I'll make what I have work, so I am pretty pleased.

I live in a two-bedroom place. Here's a picture of it. We're on the ground floor of this building. You can see my stuff piled outside the door. The people who live on the upper floors access their units from the back of the building.



The house is in Alpine Meadows, a neighbourhood that's five minutes driving from the Village. It's pretty convenient, and it's close to the gym as well in case I decide to go to the gym regularly.

Because I had my car, I didn't need anyone's help to move. It was a lonely thing though, moving by myself. It sort of reminded me of the times I've moved from familiar situations to unfamiliar ones, something I've done often.

I'm happy with my room, and am going to search out some sort of chair that I can use to sit and read in. I've also got to get the internet humming, and once I do I'll be good to go.