newest edition to the Mackey clan

Congratulations to Josie, Jonathan and Katarina! They welcomed the newest edition to their clan this morning. Gregory Theodore Mackey was born at 9:06am and weighed 6lbs 8ozs. The whole gang is doing well and are expected to go home tomorrow evening. :-) I'll post a pic when I get one.

phrrreeezzzing cold!

Today has been a photo-focused day. I met up really early with one of my buddies at work and we went to the roof of our building to take some pictures of the sun rising. Yup - it was freaking early and COLD. I was doing this more out of guilt as I bailed out on the weekend outing with them to Cypress Mountain. Feeling sleepy and unmotivated I lugged all the gear on top of my regular work stuff up so many flights of stairs. :-) What a workout! We snapped some pictures of the downtown core and of surrounding buildings. there's not much surrounding my building except for cranes. My fingers and face froze. After that we packed up our stuff and thawed out at Starbucks with some well deserved chai lattes before going into the office to "work".

After work Ian and I decided that we'd make another short trip as we already had the camera equipment. So the 2 of us went over to the "Dam" in North Van (forgot it's name - but it's on Capilano Road). Still cold as ever - probably due to the fact that we're wearing our work attire instead of snow attire - . We ran into Haydn at the park. He's and Mike are real enthusiasts and tend to go out daily to shoot images - hence why their pics are spectacular. :-) We spent about an hour there waiting for the sun to set over the Lions. Took some pics then ran back into the car to thaw my toes. I wasn't able to bend them. :-) I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one suffering from circulation problems.


Here are 3 pictures that I took throughout today. This one is of the Lions. I was enthralled by Haydn lens as he was able to capture the trees on those peaks. Talk about super-duper-zoom! Ian and I had lens-envy. On nice days the boys tend to encourage each other (and me) to come out and use our cameras. It's quite a noble thought but I have a trend of bailing at the last minute - especially when the weather forcasts anything other than "sunshine". :-) The next "adventure" is to go with the girls to Seymour on the Girls-Snowboard-free nights and hopefully catch some good aerial shots of them. The excitement isn't roaring yet because I'm thinking about how much colder it will be at night and sitting in the snow waiting for them to snowboard past us. :-) Hmmm...will need to wear like 10 layers to stay warm....

no news is good news?

You know that saying "no news is good news"? Well that's what I thought about the bone density test I had done in Dec. 2006. During my annual physical last week I mentioned the test in passing and said to the doctor "no news is good news right?" He pulled my records, read something then said "not in this case". So I was confused and irritated at having to book a separate appointment to discuss the test results with him. I felt that this should have happened last year if there was something on the test that they needed to tell me. Stupid clinic - don't they call patients back after exams?!

Anyhow I went in for my appointment today to find out what's wrong with me. I sat there as he told me that I have osteopenia. All I could think of was "what?! I'm not old!" I didn't really react to this news and while he went on with more doom-and-gloom news, all I wanted to know was if there was a treatment plan and if it was curable. Treatment plan - yes...curable - no. I find that as I get older and fall more apart - it takes more to get a reaction out of me. The doctor's main concern was why I developed this condition as I'm too young to be at risk for osteoporosis. Man - if I get it now...I'm screwed when I get older. My thoughts were focused on his dooms-day speech about the onset of osteoporosis. We went through a questionnaire on the factors that attribute to osteoporosis - I didn't think they applied to me. I consider myself reasonably healthy. It's not like I'm a couch potato (often) and eat "bad" food (other than my McDonalds cravings). Only goes to show that going to the hospital (in my experience) just digs up stuff you didn't necessarily want to know about yourself...such as that mysterious bone growth on my left tibia...lol....

So this weekend is going to be kim-the-guinea-pig weekend. I have a series of blood tests to participate in. Oh joy! My doctor is leaning towards a thyroid problem - hyperparathyroidism to be precise. Even more fun eh? I tried to make light of the topic when he advised that I'd be susceptible to bone breakage/fractures - I told him that he should have told me that last week as I spent Friday night dangling precariously from wall climbing ropes really HIGH up! :-) Duh...that would have sucked even more if I fell and broke something. To keep on the positive side - I've got my fingers crossed for only having osteopenia. If I had to be diagnosed with something more - then let it be something that doesn't require surgery or tons of meds. I'm non-compliant when it comes to taking pills. :-)

shell shocked

Yesterday was my first day on the new job. Within the first hour I got a taste of what's to come for the next 6 months. I went into a project meeting with no experience and no clue what the project was about. I've been assigned to work with this established project team that's developing an resource management application. My first day was basically attending that 3 hour meeting at the start of the day in which I came of there just dazed by the amount of information being presented and anxious of what I had to "catch up" on. Unfortunately I've got to read up on a year's worth of work in prep for the design phase workshops that begin in 2 weeks. With any job change - first and foremost was to get a workstation, phone and computer access. I lost my god-like access and have now become just a regular "user". This is very frustrating as I now have to fill out forms for tasks that I would normally had administrative rights to perform.

I find that project management involves LOTS of meetings (like 75% of my day is spent in a meeting). I'm booked for an average of 2 per day - so far I haven't been able to contribute to the meetings and take notes like a mad woman. Deja vu of university life...someone at the front of the room spilling out jargon that I don't understand. This week I've been paired up with a business analyst to learn what she does and to spend the next 2 weeks getting my hands dirty in that field. I been asked to present my first "deliverable" for a meeting early next week. *sign* A business process diagram based on an interview and documents from some finance manager. :-) Should be interesting as I've never done a real-life one before.

Because this is a "developmental" position - I don't really have a manger, time schedule or core responsibilities. This is advantagous and dibilitating at the same time. I've been told that I can work what ever hours I like but I'd have to make sure I work 8 before going home. Coming from a restrictive environment - I didn't know what to do with this freedom and felt obligated to tell my mentors what my hours of work would be. I've picked 7:30-3:30. I've discovered that most of the project team don't come wandering in till 9am. I've also discovered that everyone has their own "preferred" meeting times - times in which they've had enough coffee in thier system to be coherent. On the downside - my time is shared between 2 project managers who have very differing ideas of what I should be engaged in. One person is very task oriented and the other is very "go with the flow". The personality types are challenging to work with as I haven't been able to adapt well to the "go with the flow" lady. Her ad hoc behaviour worries me as without defined goals - how will she measure my success? Duh - hopefully it won't be based on her "intuition".

So I will continue to plug away and hopefully feel more comfortable with the material. My stress levels are still high and I feel mentally exhausted by the end of the day. Each day is a learning experience and as soon as I get past the information overload stage - I'm sure I will enjoy working with this team. :-) I have justified buying myself a new work bag as I don't get to sit down at my desk much now and have dropped some of my file folders in the hallway. My backpack is handy but looks too kidish when walking around the office. Lol - it's all about fashion too!

resolve to...in

It's that time of year where the onslaught of other people's New Year Resolutions pulls at my I-should-do-something-too strings. The usual empty promises of eating healthier and exercising more spill out of my mouth as others ask me what my resolutions are. I'm peer pressured into joining the gym at work. I hesitate as I had only canceled my Fitness World membership in November and feel that joining another gym will result in the same behavior of paying money into something that I never use. The only good excuse that keeps me from filling out the forms is that I'm starting my new job tomorrow so I don't know where I'll be working or what my schedule will be like.

I'm a habitual list maker and tend to contemplate about exciting "opportunities" to check off long awaited activities off my list. I'm not going to school this semester so I've been looking at the local Continuing Education and Leisure Guides for inspiration. There are lots of hobby-type classes that intrigue me.

As I was reading Frank's feeds - I came across this article - which lead me to write this blog...
how to make exercise last

new baby in the family

Congratulations to Carol, Minh and Angelina! Carol delivered a healthy baby GIRL on January 10th. The baby is still nameless - not surprising as Angelina was nameless for a week before they decided on her name. She was born at 7 lbs 14 oz. We went to the hospital Friday night to visit the family. It's been so long since we've had an baby in the immediate family so I was really excited. :-) Carol had a really fast delivery that was drug free (not by choice). The baby wanted to get out so much that Carol nearly didn't make it to the hospital! The hospital pics are posted to my web album. More pics to come in the next few days.

gateway of India

KA and Mike left for Mumbai, India at the beginning of the month. They are on a one month adventure in the land of marble and spicy food. Their journey will take them through a few south east asian countries as well. KA has succumbed to creating a blog to keep us abreast of the sites and sounds of Surat. You can find their ramblings here. This is funny as she normally makes fun of my blogging habits and says that I don't enjoy life but enjoy narrating it. :-)

happy new year!

Happy 2008 everyone!

I hope you all had a great time off. December went by in a flash. Lots of things happened and tons of parties to attend.

First off I guess the most significant (for me) is that Kel and I reconciled our differences and are back together. Some of you may have been confused to see us out and about but I didn't mention it as it's gets to be a pain in the ass to explain our topsey-turvey relationship to inquiring minds.

New Years Eve we attended Nick & Lisa's wedding. Nick was Chicky's roommate downtown. The wedding was wonderful and it was great to see all the hard work that Lisa put into it come together so nicely. I was astonished to find out that she hand made 80% of the wedding decor, etc - including her own wedding dress and catherdral-length veil. :-) The veil was longer than the dress and the dress was right up there with in the princess-length category. I like the idea of a new years eve wedding as there was a theme to the party and it's guaranteed that all the guests will stay past midnight. Chicky was on the wedding party so I found myself wandering around and trying to befriend strangers. We ate, listened to speeches, did all the other normal wedding things then after that it was dancing and the count-down. The good thing about it was the way Lisa had set up the head table. Chicky was able to sit with me and I didn't have to be stuck at a table with strangers. Head table was basically the bride, groom, bestman and maid of honor. The other bridal party members sat at 2 tables right below head table. All other guests were spread out on their respective sides of the room.