CBC & Me

One of the things I miss about living in Canada is watching the CBC. I really miss Canadian humour. I don’t know if Canada is still putting out great shows on the CBC, I’m sure they are. I guess The Daily Show With Jon Stewart is my replacement for This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

I posted about a crush I had on Jonathan Torrens, and he found the post. Geoff says this is expected as my blog is public. Well, he (Jonathan) has been staying busy in television and movies, so says tvtome.com. I actually tuned into a show I would never ever watch (The Joe Schmo Show) because he had been cast. I could only stand about 10 minutes of this show, and I couldn’t watch anymore. But I do hope this american appearance helps his career. He looks the same as I remembered him. 🙂

Tonight is Celebrity Poker Showdown. Whoo-hoo! It inspired us last week to play a few games of Texas Hold-em with the laundry money. I won. 🙂 I wouldn’t back down whenever Geoff would raise. Show no fear! I would never play poker in Vegas, but with friends it’s okay.

Saturday Jeff is leading the Collections Dept. on an insect hunt. Obviously I’m not going, so I’ll be in charge on Saturday while he’s gone. I teased him that I was going to bring a deck of cards to work, and he assured me he’d leave plenty of work to do. Sometimes he doesn’t always pick up on my humor. I miss Rod. Rod gets me. He & Diana are currently in Ireland. I’m not sure where they go next, but once they get stateside again, they’ll spend some time in PA visiting his family. Geoff hopes on his visit to Irvine in August that he & Rod can hit the shooting range.

I’m listening to George Michael (Waiting For That Day) this morning, inspired by seeing his new video this morning. Geoff nearly spit his tea out holding in his laughter. He says George looks exactly like Wham! George Michael but with stubble. I don’t know about that, but he doesn’t appear to change his look much. I don’t know, the new song didn’t seem so great, but it may grow on me.

I played a little with iLife, but I have yet to try Garage Band. I dunno, I’m not a musician, I just sing. It may be fun to just play around with though.

I spent 90 minutes on the phone last night with Colin & Dawn. I am amazed by how little Colin remembers, and how much I do. We were discussing all the places we lived, how long we were there, and how old we were at that time. He couldn’t believe how long Dad lived in Burnewood (433 Kirkpatrick Cresent). Colin also credits Dad in Tampa Bay winning the Stanley Cup. I’d be lying if I said that thought hadn’t crossed my mind. He shared some words I really wanted to hear, he’s such a good brother. I wish I could see him, Dawn & Dylan more often, but our family understands why we live in the U.S.

Tuesday night, I made a very yummy treat.

FUDGEY PEANUT BUTTER CHIP MUFFINS I did make one alteration, I used peanut butter & milk chocolate chips (they come in one bag). But they looked just like the picture, and served warm, they were divine. Mmmm. They didn’t last long. But since it was a breeze to make, I’ll definitely try it again. I’m becoming quite the Gale Gand.

I guess I’ll sign off. I’m closing with a quote from L.A. Story.

Harris: Ordinarily, I don’t like to be around interesting people because it means I have to be interesting too.

Sara: Are you saying I’m interesting?

Harris: All I’m saying is that, when I’m around you, I find myself showing off, which is the idiot’s version of being interesting.

I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Here’s the latest picture of Dylan. Everyday he ceases to be a little boy, and he becomes a little man. That smile! He steals my heart.

By the title of my post, you can guess what I’m listening to. I wanted something upbeat, that would make me smile. I like to dance around the apartment and make myself laugh. I’m probably the only person I know who does this. But I like being silly when I’m alone.

I had an appointment today, and the results were that everything is normal. Yay! So now I have a follow-up appointment to discuss the next step to take. I’m certain that patience is one of the option.

I’m very excited that VH1 is going to air I Love The 90’s in July. I have seen every episode of I Love The 80’s and I Love The 80’s Strikes Back no fewer than 10 times. We even watched I Love The 70’s. The promo for I Love The 90’s is hilarious. Mostly because it features my favorite commentators Michael Ian Black & Hal Sparks. (Black advanced to the Celebrity Poker Showdown finals last week. He didn’t make it that far the first time he appeared on CPS).

I’m waiting for Fed-Ex to deliver iLife, which Geoff ordered for me (well, for the home computer). I’m very excited to get it, as it will give me new stuff to play with in iMovie, as well as it will help his laptop interface better with Plankton (the home computer).

We’re slowly plowing through the Black Adder Collection. We’ve done 1 & 2 is almost done. The best episode so far was Bells, where Black Adder is preparing to get married to Bob. Enter Lord Flasheart, and it gets hysterical! I am looking forward to seeing Blackadder’s Christmas Carol. A great website for Black Adder info is Blackadderhall.com.

I don’t know if you’ve heard Heaven by Los Lonely Boys, but it’s a great song. I’m going to get the album out of the library to see if the rest of the album is as great as that song. It’s worth a listen.

Touching Evil is done with it’s first season. From what I’ve read online, it looks favorable to be picked up for a second season. I hope I won’t have to wait long for new episodes. Thankfully, Monk starts again on Friday (Mr. Monk takes Manhattan)! Whoo-hoo! Last season left us with “Dale “The Whale” gives Monk the information he promised regarding Trudy’s death: 1) the car bomb that killed Trudy was intended for Trudy, not Monk; and 2) a man connected to the murder named Warrick Tennyson can be found in New York City. With this information in hand, Monk begins to make plans for a trip to New York, and he learns that the whole crew – Sharona, Captain Stottlemeyer, and Lieutenant Disher – will be going with him…”(from usanetwork.com) I can hardly wait. I know Kelly feels the same way! 🙂

The hotel is booked for Glasgow. We’re staying right on the Clyde at City Inn Hotel. A little pricey, but UCHSC is paying, so why not! We figure that the money I’ll be earning should cover souvenirs, and touristy things. A note to the family, if there is something you’d like, let me know. The moms have expressed a few small things they’d like. I may do my Christmas shopping there.

Museum life is good. Pretty busy. I know I told Rich I didn’t want his job, and I don’t. Not totally. But it’s been fun. If I had to take it I would. But I know the feeling of being worried about someone replacing you while you go away, so I wouldn’t want to be on the other side (taking someone’s job). But the plan is definitely to find a part-time gig at DMNS for the fall. Geoff & I talked about saving for a trip to D.C. to see Kelly. Yes, I realize we haven’t even paid for the Scotland trip, but a girl likes to look ahead. 🙂 I’m still looking into finding a cat-sitter for Scotland. I may ask someone at work, or we’ll approach the neighbors.

I guess I’ll sign off now. I’ll close with a quote from So I Married An Axe Murderer.

Harriet Michaels: Do you actually like haggis?

Charlie Mackenzie: No, I think it’s repellent in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

Keepin’ Up With The Armstrongs

Apparently, people are saddened when I don’t post, so I guess I better be more diligent.

This week, I watched The Net (good), and Legally Blonde 2 (cute). On tv, we watched Touching Evil, which has it’s season finale next week. I really hope USA Network picks it up for a second season. We also watched Celebrity Poker Showdown, and I’m learning a lot. We got the lingo down, and we can see the players tells pretty obviously. They already have the list of celebrities signed on to play in the next tournament (July). All this can be found on Bravo’s website.

Darcy from KUCI posted to the list a link to a band she played on her show. They do a bluegrass medley of Radiohead songs, called Rodeohead. Very entertaining for Radiohead fans.

I’m hoping to tackle making muffins this weekend. Not real muffins, cake muffins. I am working the museum Saturday morning. Jeff will be there, to show me what Saturdays are like, but eventually I will be there alone. Not alone, but I’ll be the one in charge.

To celebrate my first day as Assistant Collections Manager, Geoff bought me a David and Goliath (it’s a brand) shirt. Some of their stuff is cute, some of it is offensive. My shirt is cool. I’ll try to get around to taking a picture of it. Also, Geoff made Boromir burgers for dinner. Mmmm, tasty.

For those of you who keep asking, I go that appointment scheduled for Tuesday morning. So you’ll likely receive an email Tuesday afternoon. I meet with the doctor on Wednesday to discuss the next step. It will be nice just to have some answers.

The weather here has been odd, I guess I’m not used to it. It was hot Monday & Tuesday, then warm & rainy on Wednesday. Yesterday the weather was perfect. Not too hot and a little breezy. Tuesday night we watched the lightning storm, but we didn’t get much (or any) rain. The next week should be more of the same.

Geoff booked our tickets to Glasgow. The trip won’t be as long as I thought it might be. We both have jobs to get back to. It just means we’ll have to go again. 🙂 No London this trip, but I think we will get to do Glasgow & Edinburgh exhaustively. Which is fine by me. I hope we get to hang with the locals. We thought originally we’d stay at a B&B, but I think we may stay at a hotel. It’s 40 days until Scotland, I started my countdown clock. I hope to buy some Christmas gifts there. The problem with shopping for certain family members, is they shop for themselves all the way into December. That’s hardly fair! I generally have an idea of what I’d want for Christmas, but wouldn’t buy for myself. I can hold off until then. Everyone should have this kind of restraint. 🙂

Today is Laurel’s birthday, she turns 5. She is so much like Lisa, and Lisa knows it. 😉 Next Friday is Brooke’s birthday. Lisa is throwing them a joint birthday party, Scooby-Doo theme. Weeks ago, I saw a bumper sticker that said “What Would Scooby Doo?” I almost laughed out loud, but I was on the bus.

I’ll close now with a great quote from Touching Evil. Do they show TE in Canada?

Susan: So, where were you? What are you, moonlighting now?

David: Yeah, I’m an exotic dancer! G-man by day, G-string by night.

The Stanley Cup

Here is the picture of me with the Stanley Cup, taken at the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Toronto. This was my only trip to Toronto, and the family let me decide what we were going to do. So I chose the Hockey Hall Of Fame. It’s a lot of fun, and I would totally recommend it to anyone visiting Toronto. The picture’s not great, but they would take your picture with it, for a fee. So I asked Geoff to take it from a distance, for free. We’re pretty cheap at our house. Next time, I may just pony up the money.

For an Edmontonian perspective on the day after the Stanley Cup Finals, please check out what Chris has to say on his blog.

Alright, I’m gonna close with a quote from Happy Gilmore.

Happy Gilmore: During high school, I played junior hockey and still hold two league records: most time spent in the penalty box; and I was the only guy to ever take off his skate and try to stab somebody.

Answered Prayers

What’s the difference between a bra and the Calgary Flames?

A bra has two cups, Calgary only has one. 🙂

I prayed, and God answered. I asked for the best team to win, and I hoped that team was Tampa Bay. See Colin, I stayed loyal to the Oilers. My boss Jeff was rooting for Calgary, or as he calls them “Avalanche North”.

Tomorrow I’ll post my picture of me with the Stanley Cup.

Smoke Me A Kipper

Leave it to Ace Rimmer to come up with my expression for the Stanley Cup Finals. I’ll be watching tonight, rooting for Tampa Bay. Anybody But Calgary. It’ll take a miracle, and I’ll be praying for one.

I start my position as Assistant Collections Manager at the Museum on Wednesday. I only work 20 hours a week, which works out well for me. I’m pretty excited about the experience I’ll get.

It’s unbearably hot here. And we’ve got broken A/C. I put in a request for them to fix it, so we’ll see how long it takes.

At Ryan’s we watched Johnny English, which I thought was pretty funny. Kana and I laughed out loud a lot.

We had a great BBQ at Mark & Shannon’s on Sunday. It wasn’t too hot out there, and I didn’t get lost driving home. 🙂

I’m watching The Last Unicorn right now. I love getting movies out of the library! I love this movie! It’s the music, the story, and the fact that we always watched it at Kelly’s. My favorite character is Schmendrick the Magician. I’ll end with a quote from it.

Molly Grue: What is the use of wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?

Schmendrick the Magician: That is what heroes are for.

Ronald Reagan’s Passing



It’s strange to watch a nation mourn the loss of a president. Not being an American, and having not lived here while he was president, I don’t feel the emotions those around me will feel. I hope that during this time, the nation can unite and look fondly on a man who wanted the best for his country. I hope the people can put their pettiness behind them, and show respect to the Reagan family.

That’s all I wanted to say.

Back To A Routine

Yesterday I meant to post to inform the masses all about the end of the trip, but all I accomplished was laundry, reading my emails, and chatting online with people. I’m nursing a sore throat, I’ve had it for over a week, but it went to the next level (phlegmy) last night. Before that, it was just a slight sore throat. I’ll be fine, I just need to take it easy. It didn’t help that I didn’t sleep much last night. But I digress.

Palm Springs=HOT! It wasn’t as bad as the time we went to the river, mostly because in Palm Springs we had shade, the pool, and air conditioned rooms. A nice town to visit, but I’d never want to live there. Sunday night we went to Las Casuelas Original to celebrate Cindy’s belated birthday. This was the most authentic mexican restaurant I’d ever been to. The decor was kind of fun, the food was pretty good, but I don’t think the waiter was thrilled to be serving a party of 12. And a party of 12 that wanted to make up their own menu items. We had a blast though, Jake took some hilarious photos. After dinner, all those under 30 walked up the main strip to find Coldstone, and try to get some ice cream. The line looked way too long to wait, so we walked back to the restaurant. The sidewalks were packed, I guess it really picks up after hours in Palm Springs. And there were all walks of life out there. Monday we spent most of the day by the pool, and I also got in two Scrabble games. I learned that Jake is an awesome Scrabble player, while Kevin was relegated to be the spell checker. Tuesday morning, we left for Vegas, saying our goodbyes to those who were still in Palm Springs (Cindy, her mom, Abbie, & Alec). Everyone else had left the night before. It was a 4 hour drive to Las Vegas, and we got settled in our hotel, The Orleans. Made me think of Glen & Diane who were just in New Orleans. We ate some lunch, walked around the hotel to see all it offered and then hopped on a shuttle to the strip. We passed the Palms and Rio which were relatively close to us. It dropped us beside Caesar’s Palace. We walked around that, then headed to the Bellagio. The Bellagio has a garden inside with a small scale fountain show. It was cute. Then we walked up the strip, as far as Excalibur, then headed to the MGM Grand. My friend Julie told me we had to visit the M&M Store, so we went there next. 4 floors of all the M&M paraphernalia you could ever want, as well as M&M’s in more colors than you’d think possible. We saw Green but we didn’t take her picture. But it was pretty funny when she started dancing to the music playing in the store. Next door to M&M World is a Coca-Cola store. This has only 2 floors open, the third holds a museum, which apparently closed in the last year or two. It was awesome. I could have bought all my Christmas gifts there. So mush cool stuff. On the second floor there are two bars one which sold almost every soda Coke offers, and the other one was selling 8 oz bottles of ice cold Coke for $1. Geoff treated us to a drink. We saved the bottles as a souvenir. The stop in this store was one of the highlights of Vegas for me. Naturally it made me think of my dad. We made our way back to the Bellagio to catch the fountain show, and found a shady spot to watch it. I wish our camera could record sound, but the video still looks cool. It was amazing. I could have stayed there forever and watched show after show. But we just watched one. We took the shuttle back to the hotel, and then cooled off in the pool. It was so hot in Vegas. trying to decide where to eat dinner, Geoff played “the Wayne card”, and we went to the buffet. “It’s what your dad would have wanted”. My dad loved buffets, it was one of his funny quirks. But it did offer us a variety of choices to eat. Following dinner we hit the casino. I played the nickel slots, and had a blast. Then we played some blackjack. Geoff got a pretty funny dealer, and there were some neat people at the table. We didn’t stay up too late, knowing we had a long drive the next day. We woke up early, grabbed some muffins from Seattle’s Best, and checked out. We left Las Vegas at 8:30am (PST), and Geoff drove, drove, drove until we reached Denver close to 9pm (MST). We were greeted by a hungry, lonely kitty cat.

So that’s mostly it. I’m sure I’ve left out some stories. Would I do Vegas again? Maybe. Had I money to burn, I would have loved to see a show. But the day we spent there was plenty. I hated that you could barely take two steps on the strip and not have someone shoving flyers in your face. The billboards were offensive. They don’t call it Sin City for nothing. It really is like Sodom & Gomorrah. I realize there is a whole other side of town that isn’t the strip, but I don’t know how people can live there.

Well, I have to go to the bank, the library, and Target, so I better get on with my day. We’re going out to Elizabeth on Sunday to Mark & Shannon’s. I ‘ll try not to get lost. I also want to try to treat Gary to a car wash for all his driving (Gary is our car). Oh yeah, and I posted some pictures from our trip.



Praise Jesus!

My work authorization came through! I will get to take a paying summer job at the museum!

While we were at Ryan’s we got to watch BBC America. Man, wish we had that channel. And I watched my first Blackadder episode. So I’ll quote that episode, Dual & Duality.

(The Prince hides behind the scullery door.)

Mrs. Miggins: Ah hello Baldrick. I’ve brought your buns. Where’s Mr. Blackadder?

Oh, not upstairs still, running around after that port-swilling,

tadpole-brained smelly-boots?

Baldrick: (carefully) I don’t know who you mean.

Mrs. Miggins: Prince George, Baldrick. His boots smell so bad a man would need to

have his nose amputated before taking them off. Well, that’s what Mr.

Blackadder says.

Baldrick: As a joke.

Mrs. Miggins: Didn’t you write a little poem about him last week?

Baldrick: No I didn’t.

Mrs. Miggins: Ooh you did:

In the Winter it’s cool,

In the Summer it’s hot,

But all the year round,

Prince George is a clot. (laughs)

Baldrick: A lovely. I said Prince George is a lovely.

Home Sweet Home

I was going to email everyone to say we got home safely (long day!), but then realized they all read my blog. So we’re home, I’ll be sending out emails & blogging tomorrow. Right now, gotta take care of Honey’s needs, have a shower, and go to sleep.

BTW- The trip was awesome, and I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.