'Tis the Season!

As strange as it might sound for someone as completely cowardly as myself to say, Halloween is one of my absolute favorite times of year. I mean, when else is it deemed perfectly acceptable for supposed grown-ups to play dress-up with fun and fanciful costumes, play around with sculpting a hollowed-out pumpkin, and hand out candy to their neighbours? There is really a lot of space for letting your undernourished creativity run wild! This year we managed to score a whole bunch of discounted decorations the weekend after, meaning that we'll have a lot more toys to play with in setting up our doorstep for the tiny ghost and goblins (more like Ironmen and Batmen). This year, though, Collie did some amazing improvised decorations with a few bits we happened to have laying around the house. They were EXCELLENT! I really loved her little bin bag ghosties. So cute!

I enjoy pumpkin carving to a ridiculous degree. I can't claim to be great, but I can reproduce a simple template. Printing one out from the Internet is really simple. With hundreds of possible designs you'll never have to be stuck doing the same square-toothed grin year in and year out. This year, Halloween happened to fall in the midst of some scholarly chaos. I hadn't slept the night before (as I was busy working on an assignment for an English course), but I wasn't about to let that stop me from my pumpkin fun! I started these two as soon as I got home, and was still putting the finishing touches on the last one as we were handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. It all worked out in the end, though. The light inside of them is from small, battery-operated LED lights. I find candles a bit worrisome. The top of my pumpkin lid always ends up charred black by the end of the night, no matter how many precautions I take. I also can't help imagining some little Dracula's cape catching fire as he whirls around in search of his next candy connection. The two pumpkins shown at the bottom of this paragraph (in silhouette) are my efforts from last year. They are also lit with LEDs.

While we don't celebrate with the fireworks and bonfires I encountered in a Dublin Halloween (I thought I was in a war zone!), we had a lovely quiet night. They candy tray depicted is the one we assembled last year. This year we went with the classy and understated 'emptied fun-size bar box into bucket'. A few days after the big night, I found a website advertising special effect contacts for Halloween! While they are rather expensive, it is hard not to imagine all the amazing costume possibilities while perusing their collection. I guess I'd better plan ahead next year...

The weather here is starting to get cold. We are making sure we leave the house with a thin pair of stretchy gloves and a tuque. Col just assembled our newly purchased snow blower today in an anticipatory strike against the impending white stuff. While the snow we have had thus far has had the decency to melt upon hitting pavement, it is only a matter of time before it settles in for a more serious spell. This is a picture I took from our bedroom window last year. My sister is eargerly awaiting the arrival of the snow as it heralds the beginning of her much-loved snowboarding season. As for me, I haven't been on skiis for a couple of years. Perhaps this will be the season to correct that oversight... I might even find Col taking a lesson or two. When it comes to snow, the best thing you can try to do is enjoy it.

DS-cellent

Well, we both submitted. On Friday we walked in to Future Shop to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite, and we walked out with TWO! Now we are able to take advantage of the two-person features like Pictochat (ridiculously entertaining), and multiplayer modes. It seems each DS unit can communicate with other DS units within a range of approximately 80 feet. With basically means that Col and I will be able to attempt to destroy each other in Bomberman and Tetris without having to lug around a wire. Keen! The manual does strongly warn about using this communication mode in hospitals or on airplanes, so I suppose we will want to keep it to single player modes during our flights. I wouldn't want to suddenly start controlling the plane! :)

Heading Back to the Emerald Isle

I haven't written in months! I have been really busy with school, but still... The school year is wrapping up. Overall, I am pretty happy with how it went. I still have two more exams and another paper, but it will all be over in less then a week. It looks like we will be returning to Ireland for about a month and a half. We won't have the laptops but I want to try to keep up with this little space. I am going to bring a notebook and write at least half of a page everyday that I can transcribe up onto the blog once I return. Hopefully the camara keeps working for us and we figure out a better method of downloading and storing our photos. Anyhoo, I'd better get working on that last paper...

Where's MY Magic Schoool Bus?

This is just a tiny photo-less update. While we have been taking loads of snaps, we have been having difficulty getting the Kodak (not so) EasyShare software to behave itself. Also, the two laptops seem to be having the occasional death twitch. Not good. I am on my own in the house today, while Col is out at an interview. I am going to jump into the shower and then see if I can get some work done before I have to go to work. Next Monday I have: a theology midterm, a 4 page paper and an 8 page paper due. Next Friday, I have to give a 30 minute presentation. All this on top of attending school and going to work. Where hast thou gone, Reading Week?!

Road Warrior

I passed my driving test! Woo-hoo! I fooled 'em! You see, they actually think I can *snickers* drive! Mu ha ha! Well, it is nice to have that out of the way. I had to laugh at the things I was getting docked points for... going too slowly... braking (gently!) upon noticing I was over the speed limit... using a European steering technique (delicate fishing) instead of Alberta's rough and rugged hand over hand... All things I can work on. Anyways, yey!

School is going okay so far. I have a few presentations coming up rather quickly, including one on the film of the same name as this post. They should be okay so long as I give myself plenty of FUBAR-buffer. This means trying to finish about a week early so that I will know if I need to ask for some further direction from my profs.

Mémere is visiting us again on her way back home. Technically she is not staying with *us* per say, but it is just down the street so it just feels like she is in a faraway wing of the house. There are also some relatives from Edmonton in town overnight. Edmonton is not really that far away, but I rarely seem to find myself up there... *ponders*

I have added a new clickable banner to the site. It takes you to a page that enables you to lend part of a micro loan to someone in another country who is looking for a loan so that they might expand their business and better the future, It's a really innovative idea that enables anybody with a Pay Pal account to contribute a part of a loan being raised. Keen! Give 'er a clickity!

I have started working at Rogers Video twice a week. This has been pretty darn nice as far as work goes. The free rentals are an easy distraction from schoolwork though! Oh well... I suppose it will provide me with the opportunity to grow in self-discipline.

Back to School

Today is the first Monday. *le sigh* It's not that bad though, really. I only have one scheduled thing Monday mornings, allowing me a little bit of a break to readjust. However, it seems the machines in the computer lab won't let me log on. I even had the resident IT guy reset my password. No luck. It seems I am just condemned to using the machines out front. It's a shame. I was so looking forward to burrowing inconspicuously in the back. CORECTION: I am writing from my burrow! Favorite seat: back row, next to the wall. That way you don't get parranoid about other people looking at your monitor. As though they have nothing better to do... The privacy is further enhanced when one suggestivly places their bag on the seat adjacent. Now I am secure in my corner! Muhaha! What will I do within my realm of secracy, my island of freedom, my Fortress of Solitude?

I'm going to read from my textbook.
What can I say. I'm wild.

Making It Our Own

We are still ploughing away at getting the house ready for us to move in. At first, we thought it would just require a small amount of cleaning and some possible cosmetic surgery (it contains some wallpaper we could really live without). When we noticed a leak under the sink, we called in a plumber. We got a new kitchen tap and a bit of the under the sink plumbing replaced. We have also decided to get a new washer and dryer set. It actually had a function called 'Soap Saver'. Mid-cycle, a long black tube would deposit your sudsy wash water into the adjacent laundry tub. It would then suck in back into the machine to use on the next load. Since we don't have a manual (3 of the appliance manuals were not left) we are not sure how to ensure that during a cycle, sudsy water does not come shooting from said black tube into our non-existent laundry basin.

We have also been stripping the wallpaper. Since it is vinyl, this involves tearing off the plastic surface first. The bedroom offered the most satisfying large sheets coming off at once. The process in the kitchen has been more arduous, requiring a lot more putty knife scraping. Once the vinyl surface has been removed, we have then been able to moisten the remaining paper backing and scrape off the softened remainder with putty knives. So far, the only painted and semi-finished room has been the bedroom. We used some paint my brother Jason had left over from when he and Stacey got there house painted.

Since nearly every possible light fixture in the house is a chandelier, we wanted some more simple and modern lighting. We went to Ikea, 'the crack cocaine of the home decor sector' (as I have recently seen it described). We went in around 3:30pm. We didn't leave until closing and even then, not until we had grabbed a bag of Swedish meatballs. You know you have spent too long in a store when you come home with the email address of a sales assistant. :)

Mom has been helping us with loads of things, including the kitchen clean-up. Dad has been our resident electrician, installing light fixtures, navigating the sometimes unusual product of a do-it-yourselfer's attempt at wiring, and restore power to the garage (woo hoo!).

Also in the last couple of days, Calgary has seen it's first significant snowfall of the season. Col has been a real trooper, considering bad weather in Ireland in days of rain. We shoveled our sidewalks (darn corner lot with it's darn double sidewalks), and have been enjoying the few bits of wildlife coming by the place (birds and squirrels and rabbits, oh my!). Dad has taken us out in the car to a local mall parking lot for what he calls 'Skid School'. This is basically gunning it, then slamming on the brakes and feeling the anti-lock breaking system (ABS) kicking in. Instead of having to pump the brakes when skidding, this feature kicks in to pump the automatically for you. You only have to keep your foot depressed on the brake. He also showed us how to steer in a skid when ABS is working (by walking out into the road, having us slam on the brakes and steer around him... chancer!).

Anywho, that's enough for today. We haven't even carved our pumpkin and Halloween is tonight!