Apparently, I'm "It"

I've been "tagged" by an old friend of mine, Blue Trillium. I don't normally do these things but this one is interesting and relatively short, so I guess I'll give it a shot.

Four Interesting Jobs:
1. A Tim Hortons employee (for two unpaid nights)
2. A Parks & Rec summer volunteer (ach! too many wee ones!)
3. A project engineering co-op, working with sensors for the International Space Station
4. A good-natured coat-rack (that's an on-going gig)

Four Places I've Lived/Stayed:
1. Toronto (forever!)
2. Waterloo (ah, the good old days of one-pot dinners and never-ending landlord disputes)
3. Tours, France (staying with a friend)
4. Copenhagen, Denmark (staying with a different friend)

Four Countries to Visit: (only four??)
1. Spain
2. Guatamala
3. Ireland
4. Fiji

Four Favourite Dishes:
1. Crème brulée
2. Raspberry ______ (fill-in-the-blank)
3. My mom's chicken and rice
4. Scrambled eggs

Four Sites I Visit Daily:
1. Ucomics (need my "Heart of the City" fix ever since they stopped running it in the paper)
2. All of my friends' blogs
3. Environment Canada's Weather Office
4. Google (I'm always looking something up)

Four Things I Will Never Forget:
1. My family
2. My friends
3. All the little people...
4. My life (I hope)

Four Things I Wish I Realized Earlier in Life:
1. Everything always works out in the end, so quit worrying
2. Love hurts
3. Growing old is nothing to be scared of
4. I don't look good with short hair

Four Next Bloggers Tagged:
1. Alderman
2. A Day in the Life of KaRe^BeAr
3. hyc.blog (because you need a new entry)
4. Prove My Hypothesis (because you REALLY need a new entry)

Your Vote Makes A Difference

So, the first installment of "What Do You Think?" here on APG wasn't as overwhelmingly successful as I had hoped. But in the end, the (lone) voice of my audience has spoken, and I'm pleased to announce that:

I'M GOING TO PUERTO RICO!

I'll be going with a couple of good friends for a week in July. I can't wait. Of course, Guatamala was intriguing to me too, but with only a week budgeted for an exotic adventure, I felt it wouldn't be enough time. Especially when I looked more closely and realized that if I'm already in the area, I should also check out Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras. Costa Rica would be fun too, but I've already been there.

So, why Puerto Rico in the first place?

1) I don't plan on lying on a beach at an all-inclusive resort for an entire week;
2) it's small enough that a week would probably cover most of the entire country;
3) it's a US commonwealth, so I don't even need to bring a passport (yet);
4) I get to practice my español;
5) it's low season in July (read: cheap!);
6) I could potentially converse with aliens (Arecibo!).

On the dicey side, it is also hurricane season, but I have a good feeling that everything will work out just fine. Statistically, I bring good weather with me on vacation (last year's Copenhagen experience is my prime example where it was cold and wet before I arrived, brilliantly sunny and unseasonably warm for the three days I was there, and reverted back to cold and wet after I left).

T minus two and a half months and counting.

"Vacation, all I ever wanted, vacation, had to get away"

Carnage

In the past week or so, I've heard four different car accident stories. What is going on here?

1. A week ago Friday, the weather was pretty bad and one of my co-workers was sort of in a rush to get home. She lost control of her car while turning left but luckily only crashed into the guard rail and didn't hit any other cars. She was slightly freaked out, this being her first car accident, and it was lucky that another co-worker was still at the office and was able to go and help her out. Thankfully her weekend wasn't ruined and she was still able to drive to Chicago on Saturday.
2. A friend of mine just started a new job in Hamilton. Since she hasn't found a place to stay in town, she has to commute from Scarborough every day. Monday was her first day at work, and on her way home she was involved in a minor fender-bender. She was the one who rear-ended the guy's van, and she agreed to pay him cash and not get insurance involved, but it was pretty sketchy since the damage to her car and the damage to the guy's back bumper didn't exactly match...
3. I had my corporate orientation on Tuesday. Part of the day's activities was having lunch with upper management. In the middle of lunch, the President's cell phone rang. His wife had just been t-boned at an intersection to the extent that it sounded like her car rolled over. She called him after she called 911, which seemed to indicate that she was okay, but naturally he left the lunch immediately. I heard later on that they took her to the hospital to get her checked out but she was fine.
4. My brother's friend was at our house on Friday to help him get his kart set up. He had parked his little red car on the street so that they would have the whole driveway as well as the garage to work on the kart. Across the street, our neighbour had visitors and they were backing their van out and ended up hitting his car. These little old ladies were about to take off as if nothing had happened, but my brother and his friend came out of the garage (having heard the sound of crunching metal) and chased them down. Everything I know about this incident is hearsay, but our neighbour seemed to insinuate that the whole thing was his fault for parking on the street. I've pretty much lost all respect for her. Her husband was apparently cool about the whole thing and seemed to be embarrassed about the scene she was making. Good thing the damages weren't too costly.

Please friends, take care of yourselves on the road. This is a disturbing trend to me, and I don't want to have to write about anything worse than these incidents.

"I felt the earth on Monday, it moved beneath my feet"