Sleepy time

It's strange how the context of what I need to do during the day makes me more or less tired when it's time to get up.

I went to bed at 9:45 last night. Pretty normal when you have to get up at 5:45.

I woke up at 3:30am feeling pretty refreshed and well rested, then went back to bed for a little "finishing touch" sleep.

So how, I ask, is it possible that I end up dead tired and almost miss the bus because I couldn't drag myself out of bed when the alarm goes off.

But the dark side looks so lovely from here....

I'm finally caving. I'm getting a cell phone. It has taken a long time to weaken my resolve but it's about time that I just get over it.

So as of tomorrow I'll be CONSTANTLY AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE!!!!

I'm a huge celebrity and everyone loves me

Got a call from CBC Radio: Thunder Bay the other day. My Mom had sent in a pic of me along with Jasper. I'm not sure which one but we're both pretty darn cute so I'm sure it was a nice one. Anyway, they called me up and recorded an interview for the NW Ontario branch of the CBC radio. How fun hey?

In the morning we tried to do a live interivew with Lisa Lacko but the phone quality was too shifty. Big surprise there. Oh well. I was thinking all night about fun little stories that I could have put in but no such luck.

Anyway, I was almost late for school because of all that but I suppose when you are a giant celebrity you have to make concessions like that.

SCUBA diving

Well, you can add SCUBA diving to the short list of recreational activities that I am crazy for. So far I'm at:

1. Basketball
2. Parapenting (paragliding)
3. SCUBA

I only really need 3 hobbies.

I returned to the small town of Taganga on the North coast of Colombia over the American Thanksgiving weekend recently to do a diving course. Taganga is the same town that I used as a launching point for the Lost City last April when I went there with Em and Tim & Kate.

My dive instructor was this funny German guy who smoked like a chimney between dives, but was a fantastic dive teacher.

Turns out I'm pretty darn good at equalizing my airspaces. I can descend very quickly.

I did a full day of practice stuff and then two 12 meter dives and two 18 meter dives. I think I'm hooked. If I can find a way to do my advanced course I could do a bunch more fun dives.....

We also played a game of '1000 blank white cards', which is the best game of all time. You make up the cards as your trip progresses and you can basically do whatever you want. It leads to hilarity pretty fast.

The pictures below are from a friends camera b/c I haven't gotten mine yet. My poor computer is in the shop:(

Some Taganga Pics

Left, a picture of my friend Aaron in the boat as we go in search of a good SCUBA location. Below I cut a huge rug on the dance floor at 'La Garage', a funky little bar in Taganga.

Yep, here I am at the dive shop putting on my SPF 9000 sunscreen. I didn't get burned at all, which only took about two bottles of the stuff. To my left Michael shows off a manuever called 'The gun'.

For only $1.50 a minute I can keep in touch with my Canadian bretheren

Listening to: CBC Radio3 webstream. Girlfriend's Dog by Andrew Vincent

I talked with Sky and Wendy (my brother and sister-in-law) on the phone two nights ago. I haven't talked to them except a quick internet chat with Wendy so it was nice to hear their voices in person. I got to hear a lot of baby chatter too. They didn't do the thing where they hold the baby up to the phone like people always do with their dogs, thank goodness. They seem exhausted but happy. I guess having a baby changes everything. Sky and I talked about the old house (my folks have recently moved) and how it took us a little while to not feel weird about that. I don't know if it will ever happen but I would love to live near enough to Sky and Wendy that I could visit them often. Even though Sky and I really don't have many chances to hang out we're still really close. I guess we've always been that way. Of course there was that stage when I would just constantly push his buttons until he would hit me and then I would cry. I think we were still close even then but we don't antagonize each other with quite so much vigour anymore.

Still messing with Blogger

I'm trying to use this pic as my user profile pic. Damn I look good in caves. If only this was 25,000 years ago (get it... caveman thing.... ummm..... ya).

Metric Babies

What is a baby's mass in metric.

I know that the usual line is 7lbs __ ounces........ but umm...... non metric systems suck.

Sorry.

Metric has been around since the late 1700's. Let's get with it people.

From now on I'm defining myself as a metric only person. I've already got my height down (thank you Ontario Drivers Licence) and I can't do farenheit anyway (except for -40 degrees because it's almost the same as metric and 451 degrees because... um... no reason) so it seems like a natural move.

Now I've just got to conquer the mass barrier (that's right I'm also discarding the term weight unless I'm under water or on the moon).

So let's start with babies (like my brother's new lil' tyke). 7lb 4oz is

16 oz in a pound....
makes 116 ounces for the baby
0.0283 kilograms per ounce
=3.29 kilograms.

Ok, so Ellianora Roy is 3.29 kg. Or was... yesterday. I think babies grow pretty fast.

You heard it here first.

Is Video Bad for Humans

My friend Scott and I were talking the other day. He usually has really interesting and insightful things to say.

He was talking about how he thinks that the emergence of video as such a common medium is bad for humanity.

His main reasons:
1) It is an easy way to manipulate people.
2) Video doesn't allow time to consider ideas as they are presented.
3) While watching video we are extremely passive physically.

I'm not sure that I agree with him. On one count, I know that a lot of people (myself included) can spend way too much time with an interesting show instead of actually doing things.... what?.... who said Battlestar Gallactica.... what? And don't get me started on people who like "Everybody loves Raymond" or whatever laugh track infested pile seems to be the popular thing on TV.

On the other hand, I've seen amazing documentaries that have "manipulated" me to think about something in a whole new way, or considering other possibilities that I hadn't before. As a science teacher, I was dying to get my hands on a Bill Nye video about electric current because there were some things that I just couldn't show them in class. And c'mon..... LOST is cool. It's just cool. How else would I make conversation with people;)

I don't know..... should we throw away to TV's?

Not deep.... but interesting?

After reading a friends blog I've been inspired to try to make mine a better reflection of what's going on in my brain rather than random travel anecdotes. I don't know..... Obviously writing about places I've been doesn't have a whole lot of personal value for me although I guess it might be fun to see the pictures.

I remember having a conversation with Sky a couple of years ago about how people write letters differently. You've got some people that will fill a 30 page email with details about where they stayed, what they ate, how long their drive was. I guess I've decided that that is not for me. Even I get bored with the mundane details of my life.

Speaking of Sky (my brother for those who don't know), I just got a call last night..... He's a DADDY! So fun. I actually didn't know the due date but I was pretty sure it was coming up. I was also sure that I would get word about the baby being born from SOMEBODY so I didn't have to worry about keeping track of dates. For those who know me this is a normal sort of behaviour. Hopefully I don't sound too calous (how do you spell that....????). I'm actually shocked that there aren't pictures flooding the internet yet. Maybe I'm just not on the proper mailing list yet. Anyway, baby and mom are doing well from what I hear. I'll make a phone call when some of the madness has died down. I DO get to play uncle at Christmas which should be a treat. I like babies. They're fun.

It seems normal in a lot of blogs to say what you are listening to at the time so:

Music of the moment: I just got the new Weird Al album from a friend. Anyone remember him? If not watch UHF and laugh your pants off. Anyway I'm going to give Weird Al music a shot.