Brightening mornings

Lately I've been setting the coffee to brew at 6:15 and getting up shortly thereafter. And I noticed today that the sky was starting to brighten when I got up today. An encouraging sign of longer days to come.

A decidedly discouraging sign was the snowstorm we had on Saturday. Believe it or not, on Saturday. It pretty well wrecked all plans, except for a birthday shindig hosted at Richard and Jennifer's place. With the help of an intrepid cab driver, I managed to make it there -- and I'm glad, because they had awesome seafood chowder there. It was an earlier night, and I was back before midnight (in stark contrast to last weekend).

In view of the pending storm, Ginny moved her birthday dinner to Friday. That was a great night too: a fine meal at Get Stuffed, and then a few drinks at the Grapevine. Again, an earlier night, but after last weekend, I could certainly use the rest. And the lineup for the next few weeks is a little frightening for my liver: Beer fest, the deferred "larger" part of Ginny's b-day celebrations, and a Good Friday/birthday pub crawl.

Yesterday was a domestic day. Made bread, stock, and some lunches for the upcoming week. Also grocery shopped and cleaned up a bit. Oh, and got my taxes done -- looks like, for the second year in a row, I should get a refund. This one isn't as large as last year's, and doesn't have the element of novelty this year, so it doesn't get its own post.

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part X

And this will be the last one. It was an overwhelming success. I'm drunk out of my mind now, and will soon hit the hay. But, some final stats:

Hours of day boil: 11am - 3am = 16

Beers drank by me: Lost count after 11. But I think I did one drink/hour, which would (probably) result in 16 drinks.

People showed up... by first initial, and approximate order of appearance: A, C, T, M, H, R, J, G, G, L, B, K. I'm probably forgetting a few, but from what I have: 12

Dishes served: 2 (Andrea's kick ass Shepherd's Pie, and my beef stew)

Favourable hockey outcomes: 0

Number of chores taken care of ahead of time: 2 (bottles, and leftovers put away)

Bags of Chip/Nachos had: 6 (est.)

Firewood burned: 9 compressed logs, 6 aspen slabs

Vomiting by host: 0

Amount of partying still going on next door: Lots

Passing out by host: 0/Soon

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part IX

It's officially a party now. Laura's friends have shown up, and a bunch of us have just smoked a disgusting cigar. The highlight of the last two hours, however, was Ginny's ignorance of what a "motorboat" is. Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for the rest of us, Rob was all-too-willing to demonstrate the maneuver. Hilarity ensued...

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part VIII

The Leprechaun movie is being shown right now. The beef stew seems to have been a big hit among those who've had it. The level of drunkenness is steadily increasing. There are cigars on the coffee table, and I fear that they will be smoked in the not-too-distant future...

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part VII

Holy shit I'm hammered. Ginny, Jenn, Rob, and Laura have joined us. And Rob is raising (lowering) the bar for acceptable behaviour. The stew is on, and while it appears very watery right now, we'll see how it goes...

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part VI

Mike and Heather just took off. It's wild -- this was the first time they were actually at my place in the 4 years of knowing them. Good folk.

Role Models is becoming an increasingly hilarious movie, now that it's started with the Kiss meets Dungeons and Dragons bit. Sweet.

I'm told other folks are in transit... I await their arrival.

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part V

Going really well. Mike and Heather showed up, and we threw on Role Models, which is hilarious (now that I'm aware of this fact, cuz I'm sure I'll forget). I'm on Drink #7 now. The fire's going with aspen (that actually dried out in time). People are trickling in now... this pleases me.

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part IV

Tim has joined the fold, and along with him, a bottle of Red Breast Irish Whiskey. The movies/TV have been suspended, and in its place is some Irish music recorded live at O'Reilly's some time ago. Right now we're all standing in the kitchen and shooting the shit. I've started my second tour of Ireland, still going strong, if a little buzzed.

Still waiting for the "We'll show up in the afternoon" folk...

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part III

It's now 1:50. Just finished the tour of Ireland, as has Craig. Andrea is seeping in the history like the academic she is, and is near completion of pint #2. The Departed is progressing, the plot of which has fallen by the wayside. There are double agents, everyone has a bad Boston accent. But it's all good... I love this idea.

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part II

It's now 12:50. We're on Pint #3, and have now put on The Departed. The buzz has begun...

Waiting for some more folks to show up, but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea to start before 1. ;)

St. Paddy's Day Boil -- Part I

So, I've resurrected the St. Paddy's Day Boil idea. Basically, we're endeavouring to drink all day. And to add a technological twist this year, I've decided to keep a blog of today's events. So here goes.

Craig and Andrea show up at ten to eleven. The fridge is loaded up with beer, coffee is put on the brew, and breakfast started. And at eleven sharp the first Guinness was broken out, and inaugural toast made. We then chowed down on breakfast -- and here we are now. Got some Simpsons on, Dorrie's being social now, and we're about ready for Guinness #2 -- before noon.

More to follow.

Wow, that's really thin coffee

Someone clearly dropped the ball on the scoops of coffee to water ratio. It's basically brown water. I hope the week can recover from this setback ;)

It was another good weekend, in spite of circumstances. We were supposed to check out a Fleetwood Mac tribute show on Friday, but it ended up getting postponed because the first show two weeks ago recorded a ridiculous loss. Oops. But the night was salvaged. Ginny, Tim, Tim's friend Stephanie, and myself headed to Christian's, then to O'Reilly's to see some Fergus O'Byrne, and then to the Duke. I like mini-crawl nights. They're a bit costly, but that doesn't matter if the conversation and company are good. And both were that night.

Saturday started out a little tamer. I had hoped to get some workshop time in -- I haven't touched a thing for about a month now -- but I ended up just being very domestic. Tidied a bit, and made a stock, so it wasn't a complete wash of a day. Then Ginny gave me a shout and we wound up at CBTG's to check out her friend's band. George Street two nights in a row. It's been a while since that's happened.

And yesterday was nice weatherwise, so I had to go out for a stroll around downtown. Eventually the wind got on my nerves and I retreated back to the house. Then headed out to watch a rare early Sunday evening hockey game with Craig at the Duke.

So all told, a pretty full weekend, and none of it planned. Love it. This week, however, just like the other remaining weeks in March, are going to be nuts at work. With any luck, they won't impact upon my weekends, since there are a lot of grand designs in the works: Paddy's Day party, a couple of birthday parties, and then Beer Fest. Hopefully my mind -- and liver -- will be up for all of it :)

TCB

Which, of course, was the number one hit of BTO, Canada's answer to ELP.

As the end of the fiscal year approaches, things get absolutely nuts at work. I've got a final report to crank out in the next couple of weeks, on top of a literature review for another project I'm working on. But I think I've found my writing groove (at least for now), and this shit is getting done. What helps is the fact that the other stressful project is on hiatus for the time being.

Also helpful is full weekends which adequately recharge myself. Friday night was Andrea's b-day celebration. We first headed out for snowshoeing -- which, incidentally, was riddled with coordination problems originating from an inept Parks & Rec employee. But it was a great night for it: not too chilly, clear sky, and miles of snowy trail to tread upon. Afterwards we headed to Jenn's place for some cake (compliments of Ginny) and wine (compliments of Masi). The conversation was flowing that night, and of course, included some highly inappropriate humour.

I had to avail of the great weather we got on Saturday, so I headed out to the Bagel Cafe with Ginny, and then out for some downtown strolling with Milley. That night was Leigh & Sheldon's housewarming, as well as Sheldon's birthday party. Their new place is gorgeous: recently renovated, and located in a mature area of town. Some people got very hammered, and for once, I was not among them. Add a bit of Guitar Hero, and it made for very good times indeed.

Yesterday I finally submitted all of my P. Eng. application material. Now it's just a matter of waiting for my referees to get back to the association and then the council's decision. I just realized that I didn't have a "midterm interview" (I tried twice, but both times they cancelled on me). I'm hoping this doesn't become a sticky wicket.

Also, I found out on Friday night that I'm likely to be published! Just a few more minor edits to do (as opposed to the more weighty objections the editors gave me several months ago). This should help if I ever decide to pursue a Ph. D. Can't say the process has made me decide one way or another.

Anyways, back at it. A blog entry breaks up the monotony of a technical report.