One More For The Show

It is so dreary and glum outside.  I can’t wait for summer…and flip-flops…and having the fan on while I’m sleeping.  Mmmmm….summer.  We’re having Chelsea & Andrew and Jack over for dinner.  Well Jack won’t be eating with us…but Troy and Andrew will play some Nintendo Wii, and Chelsea and I will play some board games, and Jack will sit there and coo…and look cute.  I’m excited. We’re having Taco’s.  I better go, I just needed to pass a few minutes.  I love Troy.

 

Things That REALLY make me mad

1. Driving in LESS than the speed limit, in the left lane.
2. People who don’t signal.
3. Persons who will go unnamed, who live directly beside you, and insist that their base cranked up to max, is appropriate noise for living in a condo.
4. People who tell me they can’t hear me on the phone. (even if they can’t…it still makes me mad)
5. People who drive into a traffic-jammed intersection, even if they have to sit in the middle of it, blocking traffic going the other direction.
6. Stupid people.
7. People in any public place where there are large groups of people….who are walking and then stop abruptly, nearly causing others to bash into them. (in my opinion…bash away)
8. People who talk r-e-a-l-l-y r—e—a—l—l—y—slowly.

 

 

Its been a while

Today our living room is getting a make-over. Ok, not a total make over, just a couch make-over. The hideous couches we've inherited from Troy's parents...(thankfully it has been covered with a couch cover) is being picked up by the Women In Need Society. I've inserted a photo, so you realze how hideous it really is. I'm also donating the couch cover if they'll take it.

Hopefully after this couch is taken away, our new couches will arrive (hopefully not the other way around). We purchased them across the street from our house at Urban Cottage. I can't wait to get them. Not only that...but hoepfully next week, our new tv will be arriving. We've purchased the 42 inch Panasonic HD Plasma television. Our experience at Soundsaround was not great...but...hopefully we'll have a tv before not too long.

We walked in and knew what we were looking for, but Troy decided to ask a few questions. The salesman (Stephen) went on and on about how he prides himself about customer service, and how he once purchased a stereo from Soundsurround about 12 years ago, long before he started working there...and 10 years later, the salesman came up to him and said hello to him by name, asked him about the product he'd sold to him and that impressed Stephen so much that he wanted to work at Soundsaround. Funny thing...Stephen didn't even ask for Troy's name, or my name, until we were paying for the thing. We came shortly before closing (about 45 minutes) and decided we'd like to go ahead and purchase it. Stephen started to do up the paperwork, and called over some dude with braces and a white shirt on. He started talking a mile a minute, trying to sell us cords, and dvd players, and all kinds of things. He was talking like an auctioneer...hardly taking time to breath. Moving his hands like crazy. (On an entirely different subject, I wish I was a writer or a tv producer, cause recently I've come across some phenominal characters, and he's one of them!). Anyways...crazy man, didn't end up selling us anything, but we'd mentioned to him that we'd like to pick up the tv since we didn't want to pay the $100 for delivery. He informed us that we needed a truck or a mini-van. Not an SUV or anything else. We inquired as to the dimentions of the box, just to make sure it would fit in our car. Before we got this, they rang through the sale. When the man came back finally with the dimentions, we found out what the pick-up hours were. 9-11am, 1-3pm. When on earth can someone pick up their tv...? So we decided that delivery would probably be better. Now white shirt/braces man was mad, cause he needed to reverse our entire order, and re-start, and it was about 2 minutes to closing. So he re-does the entire thing, and then says, ok, when is good for us to deliver. We deliver between 9-11am, and 1-3pm. AGAIN...WHO IS HOME FOR THIS??? He was being rude, and short with us. So un-confrontational me...says "You should probably tell your patrons when the pick-up hours, and the deliver hours are, before you ring through their purchase." He looks me square in the eyes, and pulls out the invoice, and says, "well originally you said you wanted to pick it up.." and I cut him off with "Yeah I know what we said, but we were uninformed about the pick-up hours." He points to Stephen and says, "well that's his fault." Then he finishes with me, "And now we've transacted the delivery for these hours", and I said "Yes, and we were never told what those were either." once again, that was Stephen's fault.

I think it is extremely unprofessional for a manager to push the blame onto someone else, when both Troy and I agree, it was his fault.

Anyways, I've left a message for some dude at Soundsaround to call me back. I left the message at 8:10am. No call back as of yet. Once again, unprofessional. Oh well. I don't think we'll purchase there again. I'd actually be tempted to call them and have them credit back our order, except that they have a strict NO REFUNDS policy. Stores with that policy, you should definitely stay away from.

Anyways. Soon we'll have a NEW living room.

In other news I won tickets to last Friday's Calgary Flames game. It was a fantastic game and I was thrilled to see my favorite player Craig Conroy back. I cried (literally) when they traded him, and I'm thrilled he's back, and playing on the same line as Iggy no less!

I also purchased tickets to go see Bill Cosby at the Jubilee on May 10. What a fun night I'm looking forward to.

I should go...I've been playing Zelda like mad...last night, my dreams were a video-game. You know you're a video-games nerd when!

My Map

Wii

I went to 4 different Best Buy's and 1 Future Shop today, however I did get the much anticipated Nintendo Wii. It is FUN. And a work-out. I can't wait to figure out all the games. Troy is playing baseball right now. Come over and play with us! Its a blast!

Accident Prune

When I was backpacking the magestic Alps of Austria in 1999, my German tour guide Siggy used to call me her accident prune because I was always getting myself into little accidents here and there that were Bizzarre. Today another one of those occurred.

I was cleaning the pitcher from our blender, getting ready to make a smoothie for our breakfast, and the little demon spikes at the bottom (otherwise known as the blender) attacked my finger. It seemed to look a LOT worse than it was since it was bleeding everywhere...but when it stopped, the cut is maye 2mm long. Progressively over the course of the day, it has gotten REALLY painful, and I feel like quite the baby, but I couldn't even hold a pen by the end of the day, and I'm 2 finger typing now. I can't bend it, or straighten it...its too painful, and its swelled up quite a bit. Now what the heck is going on with this? I feel like an incredible loser, and even cancelled out on my floor hockey team today...I didn't know how I'd hold and shoot my hockey stick! What is happening to me!

Now I'm annoyed and in a BAD mood.

Oh well. Sorry its taken me so long to post. Nothing exciting has happened in my life....except of course American Idol started last night...which wasn't that great, but its a bit entertaining.

Anyways. I should go...my hand hurts.

S

A Few More Photo's

Awake

We've been watching the tv show 24 ALL day. Troy woke me up at 8:30am to watch it...then we went for groceries around 10:30. Back home to make some breakfast, and then back to watching 24. We left here around 4:30pm to go to Costco, and Future Shop and Church, and then back to watching 24. I am HOOKED, but Troy had to go to sleep. He was too tired, and he has to work in the morning. Not me! :) So I'm chatting with an old friend, and my brother.

If you're reading this, I urge you to send me a link to your most FAVORITE site, for my bored times. Thanks!

S

Snoring Boring

 

My day at work has been snoring boring.  I can’t wait to go home!  I wish I was busier!  I guess that’s the season though.  I don’t really have anything to write about…I need to spend some more time on my blog.  I have a lot more friends links I’d like to add.  My cousin Jill has moved to Australia for 6 months, and Kerey Smith is in Korea.  Tonight is a lazy night for Troy and I.  We’re nearly recovered from our trip back east…the laundry is done, the house is nearly clean, and the Christmas Tree has been taken down. YEAH!  Our living room looks boring now.  I need to be satisfied with what we have, even though I’d LOVE to go out any get some more furniture.  Does anyone need a “new to you” couch?  I’m going to call the Women in Need Society to come get one of the couches off our “wall of couches”.  I hate it.  Anyways.

It looks like an amazing day outside.  I’m going to go enjoy it.  Happy Weekend!

S

Photo's

Sleepwalking And Other Adventures

So last night before bed, I put all the ingredients to make bread, in my bread maker, and set the timer to begin at 3am.  When I woke up this morning, I thought…it doesn’t smell quite like bread baking...and was surprised to see a weird lumpy, semi-warm  rock of bread ingredients in front of me.  Its not that it hadn’t been cooked…its just that it seemed to be not quite done….but the machine was turned off.  Strange. 

I left there and went in the bathroom to start showering...and I saw the Listerine on the counter.  It was then that it all began coming back to me.  I don’t remember actually turning off the bread maker, but I do remember, coming out of the kitchen, and walking past the bathroom, and thinking…I’m going to rinse my mouth out with Listerine before I go back to bed.  Apparently I was having some mid-night wanderings around the house.  In fact, now as I sit here typing, I remember also being up at 11pm and thinking it was morning…hum….I wonder what on earth I was up to last night.

I have been extremely overtired lately.  After our trio out East, I’ve just been exhausted. It might have something to do with our flight back.

I hardly slept on Monday night.  I’m not sure why except maybe I was excited to go home.  Maybe it was because my ears hurt.  My ears hurt because I was at my Dad & Paula’s house, and because there’s not much room, Troy & I were sharing a room with my brother Josh and his wife Becca.  Both Troy & Josh snore, so I was having a hard time sleeping.  Paula gave me some disposable ear plugs to use…but they hurt my ears.  I did use them however for several nights, which brings me again to Monday night, when my ears were hurting, so I didn’t put them in.  ALSO, the rest of my siblings went in to New York City on Monday night, so I was anticipating Josh & Becca coming in at any time.  Regardless, I didn’t sleep. Maybe 20 minutes all night.

We got to the JFK airport at 6am(4am Calgary time).  Looked around for where we were supposed to check in for about 5 minutes and then got into an incredibly LARGE line.  I’m thinking at least 200 people were in front of us.  For 20 minutes, we didn’t move. The line was INCREDIBLY slow, and we started to worry thinking…our flight is in 1 hour and 15 minutes.  They called up the folks who were flying to Vancouver.  I figured that we shouldn’t worry because if our flight time got near, they would likely call us up to the front in the same way. We finally got to the front of the line at about 7:30am (our flight was scheduled for 7:45am).  It took us probably 10 minutes to figure out the silly touch-screen sign in (which is why it took everyone else so long), and finally we were finished.  A gentlemen came to put the baggage tags on our luggage, and that’s when he told us our flight had been delayed until 10:30am.  I was not impressed.  Then he proceeded to say, “Where is your 4^th bag?”  we told him we’d loaded all our 4 bags onto the scale, and he’d taken all of them.  “Oh….I must have forgotten to tag one of your bags.”  Lovely.

While the dude ran down to luggage-land to find our untagged bag, Troy & I made it through the line at security, and found the food court where we found ourselves some breakfast.  I was exhausted, and we were both a bit cranky with the situation. We sat around for a couple of hours, trying to sleep, and pass the time…but of course we couldn’t sleep.  Our gate number was not up on any of the screens anywhere, so we weren’t even sure where we were supposed to be, so I sent Troy to find out.  It was in a different section of the airport.  We collected our things and walked over there.

There were not many seats left, but we found some directly across from the “Hudsen News Stand”.  The lady who was in charge of the store, would not stop humming. When you are tired, and cranky and waiting for a delayed flight, I don’t recommend sitting near a lady who can not hum on tune…and who will not stop. I tried to get her to stop by humming louder than her.  It didn’t work.  Oh well.

At 10:45 the dude came on  the intercom and said there were some electrical problems and to sit tight, we’d be underway as soon as possible.  At 12:00pm, we boarded the plane.  Once everyone was boarded, the captain came over the intercom and said they continued to have electrical problems and so would turn off the power for 30 seconds, so not to be alarmed.  20 minutes later, the power was turned back on, and 40 minutes later, we were on our way.

When we’d gotten into the air, the captain came on the intercom again, to tell us the details of the flight and all that jazz.  He also told us the flight attendants would soon be around to offer food for purchase, and drinks.

½ an hour later, still no food or drinks, but the Pilot came on again, and said the restrooms were not flushing, so they were unavailable.  If you needed to go to the bathroom, you could hold it, or pee your pants.  (he didn’t say that part, but you know that’s what he wanted to say).  ½ an hour later the flight attendants started to come around with food.  FINALLY.

About ½ hour later, the Pilot came over the intercom again, to say the washrooms had not been fixed, but people could use the bathroom if they didn’t flush the toilets.  The flight attendants would flush the toilets as necessary.  Hmmmm…He said if it became a health and safety issue they would land the plane in Winnipeg in about 1 ½ hours. 

I ended up having to use the bathrooms several hours into the flight, and luckily for me, the flight attendant flushed right before me.  He told me he was flushing, every 5 users.  How freaking nasty is that????

We finally reached Calgary at about 4pm Calgary time, (6pm NY time), and made it through customs FINALLY.  We arrived home at 5pm. 

IF YOU ARE FLYING AIR CANADA, YOU FLY AT YOUR OWN RISK!  I hate that company. 

Anyways, that’s my rant.  This is super long, so I should go.  I’ll post some photo’s when I’m home as can’t do that from work.

 

S

 

 

 

 

7 1/2 hours of work left

Tomorrow we are finished work at 11am, and then have a company potluck! YEAH! Potlucks are fun. I hope someone brings deviled eggs. Those are my favorite!

I have spread my Blockbastard news to lots of people so far. I thought I would attach the letter I am sending them. And I will keep you posted as to what happens! J How exciting!

To Whom It May Concern, December 21, 2006

My husband and I live 2 blocks from a Blockbuster, so frequent there to rent, as well as purchase movies. I would say that more than half of our DVD library which is quite extensive, has been purchased at blockbuster. We’ve been members of Blockbuster for at quite some time. I’ll be honest, we’re not the best at returning our movies on time, so usually we have late, or restocking fee’s which we always pay promptly.

Recently we’d rented several movies (we probably had about 6) and of course, once again, we were delinquent in returning them. The day after returning them (with 30 days of renting), we received a call from an employee of the location they were returned from, advising us that we needed to return to Blockbuster to pick up the movies we’d returned, and pay for these movies, as we now owned them.

It was our understanding that if a movie was over 30 days late, Blockbuster would apply the price of the movie to your account, however if you returned that movie, that amount would be credited back to your account, and only the restocking fee would be applicable.

We were unaware of any change in your policies, as no one had advised us of this at the time of rental. We had not noticed any advertising (nor have we still) which advised us that their policies had changed, to our detriment.

I am very disappointed with Blockbuster. It’s not the change in policy, it’s that I feel it is being done in an underhanded way. Apparently the change in policy is being printed on the back of a receipt, and no notification is being made verbally to the person who is renting the movie. I wouldn’t have minded paying for the price of the movie, had I known about the change in policy, and still failed to return it.

Our bill was somewhere in the Neighborhood of $40-$70. (I’m not quite sure as my husband paid it). It’s not a lot of money, but it is my money…or it was my money.

Due to this, I will not be returning to Blockbuster. I will also be advising those I know, clients, and anyone else who happens to be interested in my story, so they are not put in the same predicament. Those I’ve already told were shocked, and I’ve let them know that perhaps Rogers is a better choice for movie rentals, and purchases. I don’t know I’ve never rented from them because I’ve always rented from Blockbuster, but I will be renting from them now.

I look forward to your response.

Shara

I did actually include our address and such, but didn’t want to post that. What do you think? My guess is I don’t hear back from them. Oh well. Whatever.

I’m hungry. I’m going to go get some lunch. BYE!

S

Blockbastard

Only 2 more days until we leave for Ontario. I’m wondering if I should get some of those motion sickness patches…or maybe Graval. Sometimes I get really motion sick, and then I feel awful for days. Hmmm…what to do what to do.

So…I’m ENRAGED with blockbuster. Not sure if I’ll go back there, for my movie viewing pleasure anymore. Here’s the story. T & I are not good at returning movies. However, since Blockbuster came out with their no late fee’s, we’ve become worse! Sometimes we’ll even keep movies up to a month. Its certainly not intentional, its just laziness. Anyways…APPARENTLY Blockbastard changed their rules. Now (as it says on their receipt) any movie kept more than 7 days after the return date, will NOT be credited back to your account when you return it. You will have to pay for that movie. No ifs ands or buts. We even tried to get out of it…with no luck. So they’ve changed their rules, and haven’t told anyone. Its on the small print of your receipts. So…lucky us, we had like 6-8 movies for more than 7 days. I’m not thrilled.

So….beware of renting from them. I’m going to be doing a LOT more renting from Shaw on Demand. There’s no late fees with them.

I got a BEAUTIFUL fuschia suitcase yesterday. I won it from Peace Hills Insurance. Its amazing, it’s a 20 inch one…so it is the biggest carry-on allowable in an airplane. And its Fuschia. Its awesome. When we get our computer back and working, I’ll try to remember to post a picture, or you can check out http://www.heys.ca/ to check them out.

Craig, your idea of blogging at work is a great one, however I mostly have too much to do. Today though its getting quiet. Hopefully posting this way work.

See ya!

S

Its beginning to Look A LOT like Christmas (in my house)

wrapping paper everywhere...

So there are gifts scattered all over my house! Its awesome! I have had so much fun Christmas shopping, and I may do some more this afternoon.

We're contemplating buying a new computer...a mac! Lucky me, not 3 months ago, I sold my, perfectly working little computer, which I loved...and now, Troy's computer is having a meltdown. Quite literally. It doesn't want to work, so when it feels over worked, it shuts off. Lovely. This happened several times over the past couple days when I was downloading songs from itunes. I was a BIT mad. Oh well. :)

So a new mac perhaps....mac's are pretty. They have that fun iphoto thing where you can distort your face. That's why I want one. It does need to have the windows operating system though, that's a must. I'm learning that I'm getting old. I don't want the new windows. It looks scary. Troy has it on his laptop and I hate it. Its confusing. I know I'm going to be one of those old grandma's who still has her 'old computer' when the new computers you strap onto your belt, and talk into the microphone watch, and it types your blog entries for you...I'll just want my old computer...the one with XP...the NORMAL. I'm going to wish for the 'old days'. That's funny.

Only 5 days till we are off to Ontario. We're planning to spend 5 days with my Mom, then 1 day at a hotel in the town I grew up in, and then 5 days with my Dad & Step-mom in Hicksville. I can't wait. I hope we can go boxing day shopping. YEAH!

I better go, there's much to be done!

**Craig, you shamed me....I felt guilty that you likely check my posts when you are doing your daily blog checking...and I have not been diligent lately in posting. Please forgive me. I will attempt to be better...HOWEVER...my Mom has dial up...so when I'm at her place, not a chance.

Take care,
S

its been a while

My head is HUGE. I've been studying all weekend for this exam I have on Wednesday and my brain hurts. Ouch. I wish I could stop studying. I wish my exam was tomorrow...(however I"m glad I have another day to study).

We had Christmas with the Bierman family on Saturday, and that was fun. We got some nice gifts, and gave some nice gifts. Vienna LOVES her new camera, and even requests people say "cheese" when she takes her photo's. She's a cutie. Eden was a bit overwhelmed by the events, however later in the night as the adults among us feasted on some yummy cheesecake from the Cheesecake Cafe Eden was walking her new bunny around (which is only inches shorter than she is), by the back if its neck. It was awful cute.

I'm going to post some pictures of our weekend last weekend at Banff Springs Hotel. It was phenomenal! We had a blast eating, drinking, reading, and being cozy in our cute 7th floor room. It was grand!

I'll post again soon now that I have no more studying, (well after tomorrow), however Troy's parents are visiting with us from Wednesday - not sure when...Sunday or so....so...I'll probably post after then!

S

What a Weekend

Ok so I've switched to a new blogger. Not sure waht that means, but...I guess we'll see.

Anyway, weekend was awesome! Friday night we went on a "white trash" date. We went to Swiss Chalet for dinner, and then bowling in the NE. It was awesome. I loved it. I asked Troy as we were walking out the door if we should have dressed up, but he thought not. It was fun anyway.

Saturday was great. We went Christmas shopping and then came home and decorated our home for Christmas. Tree and everything. It was ablast of a night. We watched Christmas Vacation and everything. Yup....November 11th.

Sunday we had invited our friends Matt & Emma who were in Calgary for the weekend to breakfast. What a great time we had with those 2. We ate waffles and even found a little catepiller in one of them. Luckily Emma thought it funny, not nasty. Pheuuuuf! After that, T & I went for a walk through "uptown" Calgary and stoped now and again to go in a store. Then back home for a long nap.

Nap followed by going to Joey Tomatoes with Darin Wilson, and then a movie at our place, in our festive livingroom.

Monday I got up early to go and visit with Chelsea and Jack. He's only growing cuter! I came home to meet up with Troy & we started the date I planned for the weekend. To the Glenbow museum. I'd never been before, and its been years since Troy went. It wasn't my favorite but still enjoyable. A lot of neat things. I prefer war museums in which you could follow a biography, or something. Asian history, or mummified things don't really do it for me. Anyway, from the Glenbow, we drove to Mount Royal (for those of you not in Calgary, this is a pretty posh neighborhood with houses ranging from the 1M up to who knows what). Here we played in a park and took some photo's of each other. From there, we drove to Jack Astors, one of my favorite restaurants, for a slow dinner. Appetisers, and then dinner, but not too much dinner....for the best we saved for last. Up the Calgary Tower for dessert. Troy had never been there before, so it was quite fun, and we actually bought a year long pass! It was really fun.

Today was back to reality, work....boo. Oh well. I guess we've got to work to live. Anyway, I better go make my husband some dinner.

Bye all!
S

Random Thoughts

I was checked through at Costco today by a transvestite. It was shocking to me sort of, because that's the first time I've had that happen. I suppose people who choose that lifestyle deserve a job too...it was just sort of shocking...I don't know why. He/She was real nice...hmmm...Something to think on.

We spend the evening last night with Andrew, Chelsea & Jack. It was a blast. I got to hold him for a couple of hours while he slept. I loved that. He's adorable. Next time I'll remember to take some pictures and post them.

yesterday the most amazing thing happened...we went to the Sheraton Eau Claire for breakfast. They have an amazing breakfast buffet, quite expensive, but really nice. Anyway, we wanted to have a nice breakfast together. Anyway, the waitress had thought we'd given her a voucher for our breakfast, which we hadn't and she decided to not have us pay anyway! So we had this most amazing breakfast, for free. What a great morning! Thanks for our breakfast God! That was fun!

Christmas shopping has started, and we're enjoying it. Troy told me I could decorate for Christmas already if I wanted to. I think I'll wait for a really snowy day. I love Christmas. :)

I love my husband. He's super.

S