Buzzards and Bicycles:

It's been a pretty busy week off for me. I think the concept of "mandatory vacation" should be implemented more often.

Yesterday, I attended a graduation of a friend of a friend at the Ontario Police College in Aylmer. On the way there, it was a pretty enjoyable drive through the countryside. The corn is much shorter than I would have expected at this time of year, but then we've had a pretty cool wet summer. We also encountered a couple of huge black vulture-like birds circling around a carcass on the road near a tiny little town with the unfortunate name of Crampton. A rare but interesting sight.

It was a nice ceremony, although I'm already used to all the formation marching and the pipe and drum bands due to my brother's association with the Toronto Scottish Regiment. I think they should have reconsidered having a couple of motorcycles circle around the parade square (we got a hefty dose of diesel fumes). But it was short and to the point, which is what everyone always hopes a ceremony would be. The highlight of the day had to be finding out that Wendel Clark was in the audience. We saw him drive into the parking lot with his honking huge black SUV with (we assumed) his wife and two cute kids. He was there to support his brother, Kerry Clark, who was also graduating. After the ceremony we were all standing outside and he was within 30 feet of us. Young kids went up to him for his autograph, but since in our group we were all in our 20s and above, we thought it would be slightly tacky if we tried it. I think we were able to sneak a photo of him from a distance (yikes, we've become amateur paparazzi!).

Today, I decided that I want to live on one of the Toronto Islands. My friends and I brought our bikes downtown, took the ferry across the harbour, biked around the islands, and had ourselves a nice little picnic too. The first thing that really struck me was how quiet it was. Even with the downtown core not that far away, it was as though we were biking somewhere in the country. Very cool. It didn't take that long to get from one side to the other, but it was a leisurely ride, interrupted occasionally by cars passing at 30 km/h (the speed limit) and those little tour trains that you see at places like MGM Studios ("and on your left, you'll see the 'clothing optional' beach"). We had to cut our adventure short (some of us had to get our long weekend started), otherwise we could have stayed until dusk and rented a firepit on the beach (the one where clothing is somewhat mandatory). But now I can add another "favourite Toronto activity" to my list. I wonder how much one of those houses costs...

"What would you say, don't drop the big one, if you a monkey on a string, don't cut my lifeline"

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Asians...:

Actually, there are four of them.  For those of you who hasn't heard my story yet, my dad's high school alumni association (Queen Elizabeth School Old Students' Association) got together many years ago and founded another high school, which they creatively called Queen Elizabeth School Old Students' Association Secondary School, or Q.E.S.O.S.A.S.S.  I don't know about you, but it makes me appreciate my high school's abbreviation a lot more.  Anyway, every year the alumni association sponsors some of the top students to spend some time in North America.  Usually it's been Vancouver, but for some reason they decided to send them to Toronto this year.  My dad, being the president of the Ontario chapter of Q.E.S.O.S.A., organized their trip.  So, for the next two weeks, my family, along with several other families, will be housing these three girls and one boy and taking them to see the sights.  Since we live the closest to the airport, we picked them up today and will be housing them for tonight and tomorrow (I think), and then they'll split into two groups and spend their time in other homes across the GTA until the last night, when they'll be back here and we'll take them back to the airport the next day.

They're all fourteen, except for Emily who just turned fifteen.  Of course, she's the tiniest one in the bunch.  The boy (Bobby) seems to be the most talkative, despite what he wrote in his letter (but each one of them wrote that they were quiet and shy).  He's also the smartest of the group.  I think the prinicpal of the school wrote to my dad that Bobby has an IQ of 150 (I just tested my own IQ, and apparently I'm 146, or "genius"...how did that happen?).  Helen was the only one who got a little sick on the plane.  She was pretty pale but a couple of hours and a shower later she looked okay.  The last one, Edy, reminds me of someone.  I can't think of who...

I Fought the Law, and the Law Won:

Well, more like the law kicked my butt a little.  I went to a two-day seminar this weekend to prepare for the Professional Practice Exam to become a professional engineer.  My exam isn't until the 14th of August, but I figured I needed a little help on how to study, since they didn't really provide any guidelines.  The ethics section was okay, even though it's the less cut-and-dry of the two.  But as long as you write everything down and explain your logic, then it's all good.  And I'm pretty okay in the BS department.  Law, on the other hand, has an okay part and a not-so-okay part.  The okay part is that the instructor gave us templates for the different types of questions (tort law, contract law, fundamental breach of contract, etc.) and so when we encounter those questions, we would just plug the facts into the template and the answer would write itself.  The not-so-okay part is that we have to memorize these templates and all the legal definitions, whereas the code of ethics and the definition of professional misconduct will be provided during the exam.  There was one case that confused pretty much everyone in the room, including the instructor, which is never a good sign.  It had to do with calculating the amount of damages the owner could get from the contractor in a fundamental breach of contract case.  There were two trains of thought, so everyone was arguing about one or the other, when in fact both methods ended up producing the same result.  But the next day the instructor came back to clarify the answer and confused me again.  I don't know, I'll just BS through that too I guess...

"Into the river below, I'm running from the inferno"

You Can Tell That I'm Supposed To Be Studying:
 
What is this, the third blog of the night?  I'm sitting here trying to make some sense of engineering law, and of course this pops up in the book and I had to share it with the rest of you.  It gives you an idea of how much sense I've made of everything I've read so far:
 
Sometimes letters of intent are clearly agreements to agree, rather than well-defined agreements.  The agreements to agree do not constitute enforceable contracts: the courts will not enforce an agreement to agree.  It is, in fact, no agreement at all.

Nothing Beats Raspberries:
 
I was having the worst day yesterday.  Nearly killed myself 10 times on the way to work due to drowsiness at the wheel.  Had little to do at work since I was waiting for other people to finish stuff for the projects I was working on.  Guy who was supposed to get a document to me by yesterday didn't.  Got gouged at the gas station.  Drove home in the pouring rain.  Found out that gas is cheaper closer to home by something like 10 cents a litre.  Came home to an "I told you so" speech (regarding the gas).  Had to scrounge something up for dinner for me and my brothers.
 
But then the girls came over, the sun actually came out from behind the clouds, and we went raspberry picking in my backyard.  The bushes are dense and thorny but that didn't stop Em or Boni from crawling right in there to pick the fruit.  Jocelyn screamed every time a snail was about to attack her.  Doyali went for the surface fruit, then watched the rest of us like we were a floor show (which we were).  Every so often you'd hear someone say "OW!" and then "CRAP!" as she drops a ripe berry.  I'd be checking around to make sure we didn't lose Boni to the bushes.  In an attempt to get rid of a mosquito on Jocelyn's foot, I slapped at it, which of course caused it to explode, so Jocelyn blood was everywhere.
 
We came back into my kitchen and had some of the spiciest hot chocolate ever.  It had ginger, chili peppers, Madagascar vanilla and orange peel infused into it.  Completely reminded me of Turkish coffee (you know, the kind that you can actually chew while you're drinking it).  Except with Turkish coffee, you're only supposed to drink a shot.  We each had half a mug (and in the case of Boni, Doyali and Em, two servings each).  I was ready to give up but I chugged it down in the end.  Everyone left with a smile and a bucket of berries.
 
So my day was saved by raspberries.  Is there anything they can't do?
 
"Raspberry in my hand, you feel alright but I don't know if I am"

Sights and Sounds at the Distillery:
 
I went to the Distillery District on Sunday to check out the pre-Beaches Jazzfest scene.  I've said this before, but the Distillery District is my new favourite place.  Yes, it's become touristy and expensive, but it's one of the few cool places in the city that's all 19th century but not "look don't touch".  The jazz was pretty good, the weather was not.  But every time it rained we just ducked into another art gallery.  A few things I noticed:

• While I was sitting in the Sandra Ainsley gallery, I noticed a woman who had all the appearances of being blind (the dark glasses and the white stick kind of tipped me off).  However, she walked to each piece and stopped.  She even asked a by-stander how much the giant rotating glass cube cost and when he couldn't find the price tag she helped him out by pointing to a tiny square on the floor.
• Outside the bakery there was a one-legged pidgeon.  The bird just hopped around on the one leg, eating the stuff under the picnic tables, flying off if people got too close, but always came back and hopped around again.
• I saw the skinniest woman ever.  She had to have been something like 4 and a half feet tall, but her legs were nothing but skin-wrapped bones.  Well, I couldn't tell with one of her legs since she was hobbling around in a cast.
• There was a Chinese girl with Down syndrome that passed me a couple of times.  Even though, statistically, Down syndrome effects everyone of any racial background equally, I still think it's rare to see it in someone of Asian descent.
• One of the great things about the Distillery District is that it's incredibly clean.  This is largely thanks in part to the boys they hire to walk around with garbage bags and tiny rakes to clean up all manner of crap on the ground, even the small blue water bottle lid that one of them saw near the bench I was sitting at.  As he walked away I finally saw what was written on the backs of the red shirts they wore:  "Don't Litter".

"Come one come all into 1984"

Pass the Mish-Mash, Please:

Everyone has crazy co-workers, right? Sure they do. So do I. Now, I'm not sure I should use her real name, given how much I might make fun of her at this point (and actually, some of you who read this already know her name anyway), so I'm just going to call her "Pam". Pam...she's one of those people you just really can't figure out. I mean, she's a nice enough person (if you don't upset her), and she means well (despite being slightly hypocritical), but frankly, I think she's a nut. I've only been working with her for five months but I've already accumulated a book's worth of stories about her.

Let's start with a couple of recent events. Before my department split into two groups, one in the office and one on the production floor, Pam made an almost daily trip out into the plant to observe the operators and make notes about any and all deviations she can find. Basically, she was the snitch. And she's really particular, she will report every little detail she can see. So, for someone who's that...for lack of a better word, anal, it was really surprising when I found out that she was a total slob. Her house, her car, her desk, it's all pretty much a horrible mess. Monica had to check something on Pam's computer and came back motivated to clean her own office. She said that Pam had the most disgusting keyboard she's ever seen. She didn't really want to touch it.

The other Pam story for today isn't that spectacular, just a little funny. Last week she came to work in a fairly conservative outfit: a sort of brown and tan-coloured top, black pants, and a pair of hot pink platform flip-flops.

Yeah...we all looked twice.

Keep in mind, she's gotta be in her fifties by now. She's been around forever.

Okay, switch gears. I was at the Street Festival this weekend and I separated from my friends briefly to go up to Yonge and Lawrence to get something. On my way back to the subway, I was following a Chinese family down the stairs. Here's how it went: the older generation (grandmother, I'm guessing) was trying to get everyone to give her their hats so she could put them in her bag. The father, carrying the stroller, scolded her for distracting them as they went down the stairs ("do you want us to fall to our deaths?"). The mother starts yelling at the daughter for being disobedient. The father tries to make peace between everyone because hey, they're supposed to be having a good time today. The moment they reach the bottom of the stairs, the grandmother starts grabbing the hats off the kids. All of this was happening in Cantonese. I moved away quickly after that because I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep from laughing. I swear, it was like I was watching my own family.

That's all for today. Hopefully, I will have done this correctly and you'll be able to comment from now on (yes, I have succumbed to the peer pressure...whatever).

"Narrow daylight entered my room, shining hours were brief, winter is over, summer is near, are we stronger than we believe?"

Dum-da-da-dah!!!

I have finally updated my website with the Winter Getaway story complete with pics! Peruse at your leisure...