Launching

Today is the launch of my new blogging home at jennerosity.org.  I’ve got most things up and running and will continue blogging from that site from now on.  I will be posting to both for the first little while, but don’t wait too long to update your .rss feeds (here’s hoping the new ones are actually working!) and your bookmarks so you can keep up with all my Geekness comings and goings.  I’m too tired for much more fanfare than that.  There’ll be a blog post later about the journey to the new site and the things I’m learning along the way.

New York City!

As you’ve noticed, I’m behind on some of my regular blogging duties.  I haven’t done last week’s book group blog post and I don’t think I’ll get to this week’s or next week’s book group blog post.  (I do have my Trek Tuesday post ready and loaded though.)  I’m going to go ahead and blame it on me being super busy preparing to go to New York with my sister next week.  So, don’t expect much action here next week at all. 

However, if you just can’t get enough of me and want to read about our trip, you can always check out Sauntering Sunflower,* where I’ll be attempting to blog about it as it happens.  It’s the blog my husband and I started for our trip to Japan.

Also, if you want a New York postcard sent to you, send me an email with your mailing address and I’ll do my best to send away a postcard to you while we’re there.

*Just for the record, my husband’s the sunflower and I’m the daisy.

My Own Domain

Today is turning out to be a GREAT DAY!  I just won my own domain.  So, now if I can work out some hosting deal with the current web host L and I use, I may be switching to a platform like WordPress.org!  So, if things start changing around here, that’ll be the reason why, just fyi.

Site Tweaks

So, I finally got around to putting my blog into three columns instead of two. I also took out some of the sidebar content. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Well, here we go again . .

So, I managed to clear out my inbox at work yesterday. This morning is a quiet lazy morning and we haven't had many customers in the office at all. So, I was hopeful that I'd get some time to blog a bit today and do an update. Then, my boss called and 'the list' for August is in. So, now, my day is going to be spent doing some data entry and checking names and addresses for just over 1200 transactions.

Anyway, I thought I'd still fit in a micro update for you all . . .

Kickboxing is almost over :( No summer sessions are offered either. So, we're going to take some swimming lessons instead. Lance is thinking about doing a triathalon but would like to brush up on his swimming and biking skills first.

I am in the process of upgrading my old Palm pilot. I bought an HP iPAQ and it has a cell phone integrated right into it. I'm not planning on using the phone much and I haven't even had time to set up the voice mail function on it. It's going to be a slow transition process though because I now have a completely different operating system. There are a few applications that I already know that I'll have to replace with some alternate programs, so it's going to be a long process of downloading, installing, and trying out different programs. I also need to get a few accessories for it . . . headphones that actually fit my ears . . . a mini-SD card so I can have more than 1 podcast loaded on there at a time.

Work is going pretty well. I'm just feeling a lack of motivation right now. I'd really like to be doing anything else. But, I've got that Big Scary Test coming up in July! Eeek! I'm making pretty good progress on it. I'm a bit behind my study schedule, but I did schedule in 2 weeks to review at the end and I should still have most of that time for reviewing and practicing answering questions. I'm just glad that the marks are out about a week after you write. I can't stand waiting for the mark after the test. Even if I fail, I'd rather have the mark sooner than later.

Oh, and I'm officially a Heroes fan now. I've seen an episode or two and we're buying the first season when it's released in August :)

Incredi-brief update . . .

Haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update as to why I haven't been updating.

Home - busy, just bought Ikea furniture which is half assembled in my living room. Stepping over cardboard boxes . . . again. Now have an extra bookcase - any takers?

Work - busy and not busy. We don't have many customers right now, but all the normal work stuff that my former co-worker used to do have all sorta fallen on my shoulders. So, now I get to fit her three days worth of work into the one extra day that I'm working now and still do all my normal tasks too. At least no more tax returns though! And, there is a warm and fuzzy side too! I just saved someone $200 on his car insurance so I feel good about that right now.

Exercise - Feeling pretty good in my consistency. Haven't felt too challenged during workouts lately, but my muscles tell a bit of a different story. It turns out I'm going to miss 4 kickboxing sessions this time around :( I guess I'll have to make up for it with the rest of them being more intense!

Summer Plans - Summer is filling up fast with a picnic in Maple Ridge planned, a wedding, and a trip down to Seattle for PAX (aka Geek convention). Luckily, my CAIB exam is early in July so I'll either get to enjoy my summer because I've passed and I'm finished that designation, or be anguishing over my books because I failed and have to re-write it in the fall.

Well, back to work for me since that is where I'm posting from.

Low Profile

Well, it looks like I might be keeping a bit of a low profile on the blog world for a while. I haven't had much time lately to keep up with my blog reading/posting and it'll probably be like this for the next couple of weeks too. I'm going to try to pop in with some updates and stuff, but I can't make any promises. For the next two weeks, I'll be working 6 days a week, as I've picked up some extra shifts. The good news is that they are at our Cloverdale office, so I'll actually be working with my husband for a couple days each week. That might be bad news too, but the only way I'll know for sure is to try it out. I'm looking forward to it since it'll give me a chance to see how another office runs and they way they organize things there.

In other news, I'm happy to say I got new runners! Thanks to the new shoes, I've been able to start my Sun Run training without pain. Well, there's still a little pain. I mean, 'no pain, no gain,' right? But at least it's the normal muscle ache and not shooting pains through my feet and legs. The only slight downside is that it ate up pretty much all of my allowance (minus my Treo fund) so I'm broke until April. I'm thinking this won't be so hard to bear since I'll be working most of the time anyway. I've got pictures, but they are at home and I'm posting from work.

Speaking of work things, I get to help out a bit with tax returns this year. It is quite interesting so far. And, with the program we've got, not very hard at all. I've done a few simple ones under supervision. I also have done most of my own tax return for this year. We're just waiting for a couple more RRSP slips from our automatic contributions that were set up. This year, I've managed to really increase my basic financial intelligence and things are starting to make a little more sense now.

Site Changes

So, you may notice that I've changed a few things about this blog. First of all, I finally got some different colours going on. We'll see how long I like them for.

You should also take a look at the sidebars and check out some of the changes I've made there. I finally got myself a good subscription service, so now you can subscribe to the blog or sign up to have new posts delivered straight to your email account.

In addition to updating my link list, I also added a list of sites that have linked to me. Nothing too exciting, but it gives you an idea of a few of the places that I've been to, and some of the stuff I might be involved in.

Finally, if you scroll all the way to the very bottom, you'll notice that I've added a creative commons attribution license to my blog, which applies to all original content. Not that I've produced much aside from my own opinion, and I don't know who would want to steal that! Plus I've signed up for the MyBlogLog community, so maybe some people in that community will stop by at some time and you'll be able to see who stumbles on by.

Now, my eyes are sore from staring at the computer all day, so I'm going to take a break.

Well, I half fixed it

So, I spent a few hours tinkering with my blog and reading help sections from official and unofficial sources trying to get my sidebar back up to the side where it belongs. It turns out the problem was a couple of posts that I did via email a while ago. They were adding some random code into the posts and this was screwing things up (even though the guilty posts were no longer being displayed on my main page). Anyway, no more email posts for me!

While I was tinkering I decided to change my template, so this is what I picked (for now). I may tinker some more with it and customize some colours a bit. We'll see how much energy and motivation I have for it vs. other things.

But, because I can't have my cake and eat it to (or maybe I should say, have my blog and view it too), another problem came up and I'm too tired to fix it right now. Despite taking the time to add and rearrange my sidebar elements previewing things over and over again to make sure I got it aesthetically right, my blog wants to display things in its own order. It just won't save things the place I put them. So, the order is a bit jumbled up, but it's all there. The only thing I've left off is the weather one and I think that was a bit too big for the sidebar anyway.

Long Weekend - Reifel Bird Sanctuary

On our Monday off, we wanted to get away from suburbia for a while and get back in touch with nature. We've wanted to go to the Reifel bird sanctuary for a long time, and never gotten around to it. So this weekend, we decided we'd go.

They have quite a few trails and it's just a nice relaxing place to go walk. Mind you, if you're only there for the walking, I'm sure you could find another nice place that doesn't charge you $4 per person to walk around. However, as far as admissions go, it wasn't too bad. Also, you can buy a bag of bird seed there for $0.50 and you get a huge bag of it. They recycle the bags and their maps too, which I think is just cool!

We took a lot of photos while we were here. I mean a lot! I switched it over to continuous exposure mode. This basically means that if you hold down the shutter button, you take continuous photos until you lift your finger. We wound up with over 200 from just our brief visit. A whole lot got deleted (like all those attempts to take pictures of birds in flight that ended up being empty sky pictures). Here are a few of my favourite moments that got captured.

Long Weekend - Science World Pictures

So, it's almost a week after the long weekend, and I thought it was about time I posted about the highlights.

We both worked Saturday but went to Science World Sunday morning (after working on our garage). We were very excited to see the Lego exhibit there. Here are a few of the photo highlights . . .



We got to Science World just as a dragon boat was being launched at the little harbour there.



It reminded me how cool it would be to try that. Or at least watch the annual Dragon Boat Race that happens every year here.

We were testing who could jump higher.





As you can plainly see, Lance won by a longshot. I think it was something to do with him turning invisible at the same time.

My favourite picture from the lego exhibit . . .



And, my husband on a frog . . .



If you want to see more pictures, then check out my flickr account.

What Newlyweds REALLY do the first few months . . .

So, Lance and I have been very busy lately. We've been working on a few major DIY projects trying to get our inherited furniture to match.

We got a great solid oak huge dining table from his parents. It's got a few bumps and dents, but it's a great size for entertaining and having gaming sessions. But, we hated the colour and the style of legs. So, we stripped it, sanded it, stained it, and varnished it (with varnish, not lacquer!). We had a few set backs along the way. Like when we left it out in the hot sun to dry and the wood expanded and fell apart! Or when we were putting what we thought was the final coat of varnish on and a sudden rain storm swept in leaving little white marks on it. But we finally got it finished. We even picked new legs and stained those as well. We both love the way it turned out!



A slightly smaller table project was painting the veneer coffee table with tile inlay to match. This coffee table was from my side of the family. I think it's a fabulous coffee table. Luckily, this project went a lot faster and didn't have any setbacks. It was a simple matter of disassemble, sand, prime, paint, and varnish. Incidentally, the one smallish can of varnish got us through both tables! The dining table ended up having 6-7 coats of varnish in the end. The coffee table we didn't put as many on, only a couple.



We've already jumped into our next major project of painting the concrete in the garage. I probably won't post pictures of that one, since it isn't quite so decorative. Just a functional fix for the dust problem in our exercise area.

Beta Baby

Ok, so I came home and went to log onto my blog to fiddle with an option for allowing people to sign up to receive my blog by email. When I got to the sign in page, it came up with the option for me to switch to signing in with my Google account. It once again gave me the option of switching to the Beta and I tried again, just for the heck of it. It worked! We're in Beta baby!

I'm very excited about it, but I don't have time to play with all the features right now. It's also already after 11 and I'm feeling so sleepy, I'm not even sure I can handle the responsibility of choosing an appropriate label for this entry.

Be aware that any wonkiness with the layout of the page, is probably due to some of the new beta features. They have drag and drop editing for different features. It also looks as if my flickr badge, weather forecast, and del.icio.us links were all taken out. Hopefully I can figure out a way to bring them back. If not, I'll probably switch back to the old template system.