lexrobertson.ca

Updates on old topics:

S and I are now broken up. My bike has arrived – I’ve had my first practice session and first minor injury. The bike is getting new levers for the clutch and brake – better sized for my girl sized hands, a new battery – the current one isn’t holding a charge, and possibly an oil change. It doesn’t need the oil change, but I’m figuring that I might do it just to start practicing.

Recent and Upcoming things:

Went down to Calgary over Otafest weekend and caught up with people. Heading to Saskatoon next weekend to catch up with more people. I need to put more effort into acquiring further people here in Edmonton especially with the return of C to Saskatoon having completed her Library Sciences masters.

Our internet at the new place is finally stable and we’re getting closer to unpacked as I nag the roommate to death about her mountains of boxes in the common areas. We had snow again last weekend so between that and the bike related bruises I haven’t started walking to work yet. But I’ve been better about my eating habits this month. Sadly that enough wasn’t sufficient maintenance for the fitness boot camp results – backsliding produces an unhappy Lex.

It’s going to be a concert filled summer – last weekend was Video Games Live. Upcoming in June is Rise Against followed by Burton and Cummings (sp? a co-worker really wanted to go and I said I would just to keep the theme of the summer going). July is No Doubt with Al’s gf and then Depeche Mode with the roommate.

We’ve (Al, his gf, and I) come up with an outrageous idea for lil sis’ grad gift – It’ll take until August to sort out the details so I won’t go into to much details now except to promise pictures at the end.

I’m going to try to write a brief something each week – if only to remind myself that keyboards and computers are related to more than just work…. Anyone else have interesting spring plans they want to share?

Today I’m posting from Calgary. I’m down running errands for Mom and seeing people. It’s hitting me that I’ve been based in Edmonton for almost a year now – it’ll be a year in June.

A little over a year ago, S and I played a prank involving a ring for April Fools Day. This year we’re on hiatus/separated/not presently dating but not necessarily broken up.

I’m moving into a new place in Edmonton (that’s apartment #3 in Edmonton for those keeping track) this month with S and Jen as roommates. It will be walking distance to work and this makes me happy as fitness boot camp is providing painful stimulus for a fitter me, but hopefully walking will provide less painful maintenance of the fitness.

The upcoming anniversary of my most recent city jump is making me very introspective about changes and living life. On a not entirely related note, a Honda Twinstar will arrive in May to become my first owned motorcycle (commonly referred to as my training bike because it’s not very powerful only about 100cc). I’m excited about the delivery and will be trying to spend more time as a passenger on other people’s bikes in April/early May in preparation for riding mine. I’m hoping this turns into a hobby and not just another failed attempt at finding a hobby my body can consistently handle. Wish me luck! My other spring goal is going to be brushing up my languages – starting with French (both so I can keep up with a friend’s little girl as she starts learning it and so I can not make too much of a fool of myself in I go to Montreal for a weekend conference/whatever this summer) and Japanese (in preparation for a possible trip in the fall).

What are other people’s spring anniversaries and goals – anything more interesting than mine?

So I didn’t even make it a month straight with the weekly blog posting plan. This does make me sad.

Work has been eating my brain, but I did have a nice break where I didn’t look at a computer or open my laptop for over 24 hours this past weekend. It was much needed.

Now however, I’m right up against a deadline and it’s getting to be quite tight for my tastes. So the earliest there may be a ‘real’ post is this Sunday, but plausibly not until the week after.

*raises an imaginary glass for St. Patty’s day*

The weather this week has been horrible. Cold (-20 and below) with a lot of wind (feels like -35 when actually out in it) combined with a lot of snow and almost no sunlight (this is the very bad one for Lex). Lots of people were complaining that the Groundhog lied (as he apparently saw his shadow thus saying we should be through this shortly) and I kept telling people we were hoping for the old saying ‘In like a lion, out like a lamb for March’ but today as the first day of March we’ve got no wind, lots of sun, with more moderate cold (staying above -20 all day) I’m forced to wonder how many of those superstitions still apply in the modern world. Should it be the pilot checking for his shadow against the tarmac on Feb 2nd?

I’m considered highly superstitious by my primary client because I’ll knock on wood or tables to ward off potential bad things during meetings or conversations. We’ve a bi-weekly lunch poker game at work and the first piece of information I garner is everyone’s horoscope sign because I believe it will help me predict how they’ll bet. I don’t throw salt over my shoulder if I spill some and I generally give a wide berth around ladders because I’m a klutz.

Which of the old superstitions do you follow/believe? Which ones should be updated for modern times?

First, in honor of Evil Commercial Pink Sheep day [ECPS for short]… it happens every February 14th.

Let me explain: it’s Evil because the it’s other name is ‘Midwinter depression day’. Commercial is for the fact that it is now a completely commercial entity whatever its roots may have been. Pink because that’s what a good chunk of the crap relating to this holiday is coloured (and usually the more awful shades). And Sheep because that’s what all who celebrate it are.

So here’s my challenge, next year do not buy anything (large, pink, chocolate, roses, or otherwise non-essential to daily life. Do still get groceries and the milk from the corner store) between Feb 1 and 14. Talk to your sweetie and pick a different day for the two of you. A less commercial more intimate day.

Second, Breakups.

For those concerned let me start with the fact that S and I have not broken up at the time of writing. But another friend and her previous other half have; while another is threatening to break up with his gf because she cleaned his desk. And this has lead me to thinking, what are the number 1 cause of the breakups you’ve heard about lately?

This is a sadly diminutive post. Here’s hoping for more on Sunday.

So I decided I’d write a somewhat maudlin and self serving post about the cause of my missed post yesterday. Migraines. For those looking for wit, humour, or my usual sarcasm I’d recommend skipping today’s post.

For those who’ve never experienced one, you have my envy. For those who’ve had one, you’ll have had your own variation on what I describe here, but the only consistent symptom, I’m aware of at any rate, to migraines is the pain and associated stopping of life to await it’s passing.

I got my first one when I was a teenager. At the time I didn’t realize all the things that would make it worse (light, caffeine, noise, etc), I simply went through my day a zombie until I could get home and hide in the dark and quiet. Eventually my mother took me to the herbal store for a supplement to help decrease the frequency and severity. I took it daily for a quite a number of years and still take it on occasion when I’m aware I’ve been exposed to a migraine trigger. In my early twenties, I had my wisdom teeth removed and, although I didn’t immediately make the correlation because I was still taking the supplement daily, the migraines frequency dropped down.

Most often I get light and sound sensitive migraines which makes functioning or talking to people similar to taking a big hammer and hitting your head or hand with it every time you open your eyes or your mouth. I’ve only rarely had the migraines that included nausea, vibration sensitivity, and I’m rather thankful for that. I can’t imagine how much worse it must feel to know that going to the washroom is necessary, but that the motion is going to hurt and when you get their you’ll be trying to hurl contents you may not have out of your stomach. At least with mine I just look weird wandering around in really dark shades and ear plugs indoors.

On a bizarre recollection note, I actually had a horrible migraine the first time I ever met S – I forget why I was convinced I needed to be at A’s gathering that evening, but I was… dark shades, wincing at people’s voices and all. The romantic readers will suggest that it was to ensure I met him and sadly I don’t have a really good counter argument for that statement.

Or is this an old plan revisited? Meh.

I was out at a social web/media gathering earlier this week and it was good fun. Met some interesting people and realized that maybe I don’t always have to be travelling to have something to write about. Maybe I can just write out different topics…

You know, write something instead of reporting things. So that’s the new goal – each Sunday I’m going to post something. Not necessarily something new, perhaps an old poem or story snippet. But I’ve noticed lately that my public speaking, languages, and writing have all gone down hill so here’s hoping practice will improve at least the writing and public speaking in English aspects of them. For the other languages I don’t know what to do – the asian ones are on my iPod, but I’m driving to and from work instead of taking public transit at present so that means the radio in the car and the office is not the place to be talking back to an iPod :-S

Any suggestions on how to polish my languages again without travelling? Or on topics to blog about for this Sunday?

It’s been a week since we got back. S developed a terrible cough shortly after we got back into Edmonton. I haven’t kept up with the walking post vacation (I mentioned we walked or took public transit between the majority of the tourist sites, right?) as much I’d have liked, but I’m thinking because winter is approaching I’ll require a couple of circuits around the apartment building using the stairs per day. Have to see if I have the will power keep it up.

The roommate has been out of town this week. It has been a quieter and cleaner apartment as a result. Hopefully now that he’s finally unpacked it will be easier to maintain the clean part of the equation if likely to be impossible to maintain the quiet part.

Other than that we had J and N (of the Edmonton SCA variety) over for food and Settlers. It was fun! If incredibly tiring. We’ve been behaving a bit like an old married couple between the jet lag and S’s illness.

But really there’s not so much to say except that if anyone’s hiring Electrical Engineers S would really like to hear from you. I’m going to try posting whatever vaguely interesting details may occur online at least once a week. But I really find it hard to write an interesting post when the week has been dominated by work and sick partner.

So this morning absolutely sucked. I woke up with the Migraine from hell. Took water and a couple of pills and went back to sleep. Unfortunately that didn’t quite do it. Not at all.

Eventually I managed to get my sunglasses out and just kept them on while we whispered through the packing process. We’d only been able to book a private room at the Hostel for the middle portion and for our last night (tonight) we were going to have to bunk in a shared [dorm style] room so the gear was going into Luggage storage for the day which necessitated the packing.

After that it was some food and back to the South Bank because we’d discovered something called the movieum which was closed after our ‘flight’ on the London Eye. We went back to investigate and despite the migraine it was fun. They had part of the set of star wars episode 4: the corridor of the ship Leia is captured from including the droids – we got to get our pictures taken with light sabers on the set next to the droids and have them made into postcards! Yay! Other than that, I paid to get a picture I had taken in the horror wing turned into a postcard for Scott – it looks so good I’m almost hesitant to mail it! They had a Sherlock Holmes area, 007 area, and an animation/cartoon area. They also had the Tardis and a Dalek from the 60s. The only thing missing that I’d have expected was the serious lack of Red Dwarf. Otherwise it was also interesting to learn about the trends through out the decades as well as which productions were shot where.

After that we wandered down the south bank for a bit trying to find a boat cruise down the Thames that wasn’t going to cost an arm and a leg and failed. So back onto the tube to Spitalfields market. It was quite interesting and S had his hands full keeping me from shopping the place dry. But in the end we couldn’t find the gallery of kinetic and moving art we’d been looking for and decided to head out to the next attraction. Sadly this is when I realized I was down to three more migraine pills and was going to have to ration them. It wasn’t a happy moment.

The Tower of London was awesome except that the camera batteries died and all the Tower gift shops were sold out so I’ve no pictures! S has decided that I am way too much of a history geek. : ) London Bridge was breathtaking, but after the cost of the Tower we just couldn’t bring ourselves to pay the cost of the exhibit especially with no batteries in the camera.

The tube home was a bit of a fiasco because one line was seriously delayed and then when we finally got onto one which served our stop, the stop ended up being closed so we walked back from the next closest.

We’ve now repacked for the trip, had Steak and Guinness pie with a cuppa and a pint so we’re mostly ready for the return trip to Canada. Other than not getting a cruise down the Thames and not finding Kinetica (the gallery featuring kinetic and magnet art) I’m feeling happy with our whirlwind trip. *I* could have done with a bit more shopping, but S is certainly happier for my not having done so.

We’ve agreed that we’re going to spend some time on Sunday afternoon sorting through pictures and creating an album on Facebook which I’ll duplicate elsewhere to link to here. And that’s all for the last blog post from England… Cheers!

Originally we were thinking of Paris because there wasn’t a play we wanted to watch being performed in Stratford this week, but eventually it came up that we preferred to leave Paris for another trip when we’d have more time for it. Just too many things to see too far apart in that city. Anyways….

So we caught the tube to the train this morning and arrived in Stratford before noon.

Then the touring began.

We took the bus around and I took a lot of pictures (where permitted which was not everywhere alas) which aren’t uploaded yet (surprise surprise). We saw the Birthplace, Anne Hathaway’s family home, and lots of the town in general.

The exceptionally interesting thing was at Mary Arden’s Farm (she was Shakespeare’s mother) they’re doing ‘living history’. They have a group of people (4 gents and 4 ladies) actually cleaning, eating, and maintaining the farm stead. We got lucky and caught one between groups and so he gave us a demonstration of starting a fire with a flint and steel to put it into the hearth. He also told us a bit about the construction of the bread oven they built last summer. They have a maypole and he should us the fish they’ve caught and salted. Interestingly enough they’ve a selection of hens and roosters, pigeons, falcons and other hunting birds, pigs, as well as cows. It was quite interesting to watch them work and hear them talk about their experiences.

Otherwise we listened to the tour guides and I mostly just nodded along. I did learn that by law Shakespeare’s wife got the best bed upon his death so leaving her the second best bed (and all the other furniture) in his will may not have been as much of an insult as I’ve heard it referred to. Having a craving to watch Shakespeare in love again for the period.

I did a quick shop for a couple of things and then we had a bite to eat. After which we headed for the train back to London. Going to bed soon feeling a bit dead on my feet.