Thursday, January 29, 2009

Innovative uses for a coffee stirring stick

Every year my honor society has an induction ceremony where we welcome our new members. Myself and a couple of other students form the local chapter's executive. Many of us have been organizing the ceremony for a couple of years so we delegate the various tasks among each of us. I send out reminder emails to our 400 new members and handle all the email correspondence. While in Phoenix, AZ, the president and I drafted the speeches and constructed the programme. One of the more humorous part happened in Monument Valley. We were midway through a three mile hike around a 1000 feet butte and waiting for the morning sun to catch it and admiring the stillness and silence when when my iPhone chirps away. The message was along the line, do I remember how many cakes we bought last year.

Every year there are new challenges and some we can't seem to solve. The most pressing deals with knives to cut the celebration cake. We always end up by forgetting them in the mad rush. This year was no exception. In the past we have used cardboard, plastic plates and forks. They all work but not very well. While the speeches were going on we had to quickly find a way of cutting and serving cake to 400 people. The solution this year was to slice the cake using wooden coffee stirrers and to us two forks to lift the cake onto the plates. The solution worked and at times it was comical to watch. The students and parents didn't seem to notice as they were eager for free food and coffee.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Half-marathon and some traveling

This coming weekend I will head to Arizona to run my first half-marathon of the year. I am looking forward to the race as it will give me some relief from the arctic cold weather that the Ottawa area has been getting recently. There is also another thing I curious about and that is my physical fitness. Over the Christmas holiday, I ran a 10 mile race in Hamilton in a time that suggested that I am in better shape than last year. This could be because I am eating better this year but I really think it is the extra exercise that I am getting each day. I run to and from the office twice a week and walk the other days. One of the bummer is that all this exercise leaves me more tired than usual in the evenings. The upshot is that I am loosing more and more weight which is a good thing and might mean that I will run faster on the weekend as I will be lighter.


Once the race is over I'll spend a couple of extra days in the Phoenix area and head up to explore the Grand Canyon area as well as head up to the north-eastern corner of the state to a place called "Four Corners." The states of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet at a 90 degree angle. It is the only place in America where this happens. I am excited to take a picture of myself with each arm and legs in a separate state. I'll post a blog and pictures next week talking about all my adventures.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Wordabble at six month

Today is a special day for folks that play Wordabble. Wordabble is an iPhone/iPod Touch game from the folks at Fusion Bay and today it celebrates its first six month of offering challenging daily word puzzles. When you look at the rankings page, five of the top 20 regular players have over 200,000 points. Congratulation and thanks to Jason and Adam for six month of fun and daily challenges.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

2008 Goals in Review

Last year around this time I uploaded my goals for 2008. The wisdom was if you publicly state some of your goals you are more likely to take the steps to achieve them. I found this a good exercise last year and something I will do this year. Before I list my 2009 goals I thought I would take a minute to see how I did in achieving my 2008 goals.



* Run a 1:30 half-marathon time
Getting closer with each race. Will have to try harder in 2009


* Go on more OHOC outdoor adventures
Achieved


* Do more hiking trips
Achieved (OHOC trips, Catochins, Pretty Boy dam, etc.)


* Climb more of the 46ers (46 highest peaks in the Adirondacks , NY)
Achieved. Climbed a couple of more peaks


* Loose 10 lbs by May 30 (race date –National Capital half-marathon)
Achieved.


* Hike the West Coast Trail/Shenandoah National Park/Old Smoky National Park
No. Shifted to 2009.


* Run a faster Baltimore half-marathon (< 1:34 ) in October 2008
Achieved. Each year I run the race around a minute faster


* Visit Brent ( Algonquin Park ) by canoeing and portaging and bring along a digital camera
No. But parents had two roofs and one patio deck rebuilt.


* Reach 500,000 Babble point (now 350,000) www.playbabble.com
Achieved. When I combine my babble scores and wordabble scores I achieved this goal.


* Do more cycling (road and mountain biking)
No. Ouch


* Geocaching goal 900-1000 finds by Dec 31 2008
Achieved in the spring and finished off the year with 949 finds.


* Become more mobile
No


* Complete an Olympic Distance triathlon (1500m swum/40km cycle/10km run)
No


* Swing dancing – Learn the Lindy Hop
Achieved but more work to do.


* Take the train to Baltimore
Goal for 2009 (Montreal to New York to Baltimore Penn Station)

2008 was a good year for me. I did more than I expected an achieved other goals that I that I didn't push up to my blog.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Date Squares and Caesar Salad

This is a culinary blog entry. I recently have taken a strong liking to date squares. It is similar to my enjoyment of a caesar salad. A couple of years ago while volunteer I spent a summer preparing caesar salads on Saturday mornings. It got to the point where I could tell how long ago it was that the greens/lettuce had be washed and spun in the salad spinner. The crisper the salad the sooner it had been prepared.

When my folks were visiting Ottawa recently we visited a bakery that they had been eager to visit for a long time. We made two trips to the Rideau Bakery. When I headed down to my folks place for the winter break I brought down a shopping list of breads that my mother wanted. One of the bakery's specialties is date squares. They are yummy and so sweet. While doing some Christmas errands we stopped in at my mother's local bakery and I asked for date squares. They were not as good as the ones in Ottawa. Today, my folks and I made our second time to the Oakville Whole Foods store. I bought a variety of there scones and you guessed it, date squares. Compared to other date squares the ones from Whole Foods were better as they were not as sweet and the top material did not disintegrate and they looked and tasted healthier.