just another crack-head

Hallelujah! I've got a working cell phone now. Yesterday I bought a used Blackberry 8830WE phone off of some kid. I found his ad on Craigslist and decided that it was the cheapest deal on the market. I was a bit uncertain about buying a device from a kid (as I just don't trust them) so I had him meet me at the Telus store in the mall so that I could double check that the phone was legit before forking over the cash. Luckily for me (and him) - the phone was functional and ready to be activated.

The phone is now active. I've synchronized my Outlook life into it and have received a couple of calls. How exciting - I'm connected to the outside world again! :-) Now all that's left is to hunt down a silicone skin. I'm all about scratch-proofing my stuff. Time to develop my crack-berry-thumb...

Happy Holidays!

We wish you a very MERRY Christmas and a Happy New Year too! Stay safe out there! See you in 2009.

is it really that cold?

Chicky and I have been sitting inside gazing out at the flurries. We don't have any proper snow gear to be frolicking in the flakes so we're enjoying it from the comfort of my electric blanket. Our main concern is how we're going to get to work tomorrow. Neither of us are prepared for bad weather. We only accomplished to make a shopping list. Things to buy: boots, windshield scraper and a small shovel. Chicky figures he'll have to dig out his car at some point.

I checked the weathernetwork and it apparently is going to continue snowing till Christmas Eve. :-) This should make the drive to work even more interesting. As I was checking out how cold it is outside - I noticed that it's currently -34 degrees celcius in Regina right now. That's -40 degrees if you factor in windchill. They're HIGH for the week is -28. BRRRR!!!! And here I am wimpering at a mere -2 degrees! Lol - I've lost all my Saskatchewan blood and have become a westcoast-wimp.

winter wonderland

We woke up this morning to a beautiful white winter wonderland. The flakes are fluffy and sticking to the ground. I've got 104.3FM playing while I blog. This station plays "12 days of Christmas music" around the clock. It's so festive! I think I'm killing Chicky with my merry-ment. :-) I even brought home my santa bag of christmas hats so that we can take a family picture in them on the 24th. Yah! Lol - I think I'm the only one excited about it.

These are the times in which I wish we had TV. Channel surfing wouldn't be so bad right now. Oh well...that's what computers are for right? We're waiting for the Brick to come and replace my chaise. They weren't able to clean it so I get a new one! Yah! I can't believe their movers are going to make it up the hill today. That's really brave of them!

drowsy chaperone

Tonight Chicky and I went to see the musical "The Drowsy Chaperone" at the Vancouver Playhouse. I got free tickets to the show (one of the FEW benefits for the work I do with the Social Club). Chicky surprised himself and really enjoyed the show. We got great seats (3rd row) considering they were complimentary tickets. I thought the musical was wonderful and funny. But then I'm biased and love all forms of theater. :-) If you get the opportunity - I would recommend seeing this show, it's quite uplifting and just plain old FUN. The dance sequences make it even better! We had a fun date and drove home as the snow was just starting to come down. Time to put on our jammies and watch movies under my electric blanket!

lazy days of winter

This week has been quite enjoyable. Chicky took the week off work to bum around home and I had a week long of training downtown. We got to enjoy the life of a lazy student and a non-working-bum. We found it quite enjoyable not having to get up at the crazy hours of the morning and rushing to our responsibilities. I like just having to get up, get my backpack and get to school in time for the 9am lecture. Reminiscent of our university life.

As Chicky picked me up from the train station on the blustery wednesday night, I mused about how free we were to do what we want right now. Just the 2 of us doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. :-) No worries about getting home to let the dog out to go pee or having a baby to worry about. Ah...time to do nothing is such a wonderful thing. :-)

an early XMas

Christmas it a time for giving. In my case it's time to give ME something nice for all the stress I put myself through during the year. :-) This year's XMas gift to myself is a new camera. Thanks me!!!! *** pat myself on the back ***

On the weekend Toshiki, Chris and I went down to PhotoExpert in Surrey to do some shopping. We picked up some camera gear for discounted prices (I have a friend who knows the sales staff). Anyhow we pretty much made Dave's sales quota on Saturday. Toshiki and I bought the Canon 50D and Chris picked up a new lens. The Canon 50D camera is bigger than my old one so I'm still getting use to the weight/size. Chicky says the camera fits his hands much better now. I sold my other camera so I've only got this one now. No little-pocket-size camera for me! :-) I like the features and response on the 50D. I'm looking forward to taking more pictures with it. Maybe I'll even pick up a photography course in the spring - it's always nice to have dedicated days to go out and just shoot pics.

tasking turned tragedy

Alas I must say adieu to my beloved phone. It had an untimely drowning last week. :-) Note to self, DON'T try to multitask while taking a bath. Though I was able to revive it from it's watery grave - it just didn't act the same. The buttons didn't work which made making outbound calls next to impossible. I've been able to receive calls but lately it's been possessed and turning on/off by itself. Weird....

I tried to take it to Telus and plead death due to negligence but they were not empathetic at all and told me that there's nothing to do but buy a new one. I was frustrated that they wanted to sell me another data phone when this one was barely 1/2 a year old! Good god - data phones are NOT cheap either. Unfortunately I'm locked in the 3-year-prison-phone-term-plan with no chance of parole. I've been searching for a used data phone but nothing has caught my eye yet (maybe it's the prices that is making me hesitate). I think in the end when I have no more means of communicating with the outside world I will invest in a crack-berry. I like qwerty keyboard phones and that seams to be the "best known" one on the market right now.

did you know?

I went to a presentation this week for IT techs and was amused by one of the videos they played during the break. :-) For your amusement...

who am I?

Yesterday I embarked on the next step of post-marital bliss...the name change. :-) For most of you this process is simply taking your marriage certificate to everyone who would care whether you're a Le or a Yee. To me this presented an opportunity to get "me" reorganized. You see, when my parents came to Canada they didn't know the traditions here and gave Immigration the Viet version of my name. This meant that I'm legally known as "Hoang Dang Kim Le". I'll bet not many of you knew that Kim is actually my second-middle name. :-) Through frustration in early grade school from people not being able to pronounce my first name, I adopted a "known as" name. So unofficially I slowly changed my name to Kim Hoang Dang Le. This presented a problem because I ended up with not one ID with the same sequence of names. I was only able to rearrage the sequence on some IDs but not others. On the bright side I might be spared identity theft because no one really knows what my "real" name is. On the other hand - I can never prove that I'm really ME! A real pain in the ass when you have to show someone your drivers licence and a credit card for ID...I always have to explain why the names are all jumbled up. Did you know that your DL is probably the most secure piece of document you own? Next to your birth certificate or citizenship card that is. It's more secure than a passport as you cannot use your passport as a primary piece of document to obtain a DL.

I took the day off to go downtown to Vital Statistics to pick up my fingerprint, criminal record check and immigration papers. I rolled my eyes as the clerk informed me that after I get the cops to fingerprint me, run the criminal records check and the notary to stamp the rest of the documents, I would have to return to the office with the package and pay another $200 processing fee. That almost made me want to say "forget it". :-) Hoang isn't such a bad first name afterall! Lol...but Kim Anh reminds me that it's better in the long run to have one official name that is on all documents. So at the end of the long process I will become "Kim Hoang Yee" in the eyes of the Government of Canada. I have an appointment with the notary next week.

I've discovered that some agencies are easy (just need the marriage certificate) to change your name while others are much more difficult (need tons of supporting documents).

Easy = work, credit cards, banks, carecard, passport (you can basically be whoever you want on your passport!)

Hard = citizenship card, drivers licence, SIN

Your Song

Just for fun...what was the #1 song for any date in history? See below to find "your song"...

http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm

Kim's b-day = "Don't Leave Me This Way"
Kelvin's b-day = "A Star is Born"
wedding date = "So What"

finding Nemo

On the weekend Chicky and I went to the pet store in search of love. You see, while we were on our honeymoon, all our goldfish went to the great bowl in the sky. Sadly enough we had to dismantle the tank when we got back in preparation for the move. In the pet store I stood by the puppies pointing at them in hopes that Chicky would change his mind about fish and get us a dog. I was disappointed.

Alas Chicky's need for his saltwater tank has come to fruition. He sacrificed his Subaru car and is now sporting a Honda Fit. To make up for a flashy car - he's invested time and effort into setting up this pretty tank. It's a whole new tank and supplies. It's now day 4 and he's still trying to get the ecosystem right. We've discovered that our floor in the cubby hole (where this tank has taken residence) is not level. It's too late to try to fix that problem.

What's in the tank right now is bacteria, sand, coral and a little crab. When the water temperature and saline stabilize - we'll begin getting the sea creatures. Where's Nemo?!

More pictures of the tank can be found in my web album.

pictures are up

I've begun loading some of the pictures from the trip. Check out my web album if you want to see them.

guise and ghouls

It's that time of year where our alternate egos get to come out to play. I've been thinking about what my costume should be for Halloween. It wouldn't be so hard if I didn't have to parade around the office in it. I'm looking for something funny and easy to make this year. I've checked out some sites and came across this one that had some unique and hilarious ideas. Incase you're in need of some inspiration...

http://www.costumeideazone.com/CIZ/CostumesByCategories.aspx?c=8

it's a boy!

Congratulations to Kim Anh and Michael! They welcomed their baby boy into the world at 7pm tonight. Tyson Chen came in at a whopping 7.4lbs and one week late. Mom, dad and baby are doing well. We went to see him tonight - he's as cute as button! By the looks of his measurements - he's going to be a tall kid! :-) I've got pictures but no time to post them right now. Will do so later....

settling in

Yah! - we're 90% settled in. Most of the boxes have been unpacked and there's food in the fridge. Kel and I spent the weekend sorting through the must-do vs the can-wait-till-later chores. Things are coming together nicely and we're enjoying the "buying new stuff" phase. The last week was tiring as it was our first week back to work after a month off (for me anyways). After work each night we spent time putting things into boxes. It was only till Thursday that we actually started sleeping in the condo (as we just put together the bed). There's still much to do with the condo but the bare essentials are in. As long as I have clothes, food and internet - then I'm fine.

We have this big TV but no cable. :-( So it serves as another pc in the house. :-) The good thing is that most of my TV shows are downloadable. We're getting use to condo living again. The neighbor downstairs is quite atuned to what we do. He's expressed his concern (in person) over our need to build IKEA furniture at night. He even came up once to tell me that his ceiling light feel down from all the banging we're doing. I was tired from work and trying to put together a dresser before dinner so I didn't have much patience for his complaints. I stood at the door and just stared blankly at him. What did he want me to do? Pay for the light? Jeez - if there was an earthquake - he'd be killed by his falling lights! I told him that he could blantenly see that we're moving in and have to do everything at night (after work). Therefore I can't help with the noise. I was considerate enough to build the dressers in the bedroom where there's carpet instead of the laminate floored living room. Kel says he's not going to be a prisoner in his own home. So what do we do? Trade "notes" with apartment 308. We're all on first name basis. So it's Kim & Kelvin against Terry and Jonathan. :-) Terry is not confrontational so she likes to slip notes under the door for me to read and I do the same for her. Jonathan on the other hand likes to complain in person. I joke about inviting him for coffee one of these days as he's up here often enough. Kel doesn't think my joke is funny... Oh well - that's all part of communal living. They actually are getting better. Since we've completed putting together the IKEA stuff - we haven't seen Jonathan in a couple of days. :-) Wonder if he's keeping tabs below us...

"going to the chapel and we're...

going to get married..."

It's been almost a month now since the wedding but I haven't forgotten about the big day. I meant to post a blog about it but things have been a bit hectic with the wedding, honeymoon, moving, work, life...blah blah blah.

I just wanted to say that the wedding was fabulous. I had a great time and found that the day zipped by so quickly. I hope you guys enjoyed it just as much as Kel and I. I have not seen any photos/video yet of the ceremony, etc but I'm sure they turned out great. :-) We haven't even picked up our marriage license (which is at Chris' house). Thank you again for all those that helped out!

I'll write more about married life later...

Cairo

We took a two day adventure through the desert visiting the spectacular Alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali, the National Archaeological Museum, then the Giza Plateau and a papyrus factory. The tour name was "Best of Cairo Overnight" and was the only tour that we felt we got the most for our money.

The trip was very safe. There were about 400 of us on this tour and each bus had it's own bodyguard equipped with a gun AND a machine gun "tucked" into their suits. The machine gun didn't fit so it stuck out. Kel was facinated by the artilary and wanted to take pictures of of our bodyguard. We also had police escort out of Alexandria to Cairo - just incase of terrorist attacks? :-) It was reassuring nevertheless.

Our tour guide has a masters in Egyptology. He is very vocal and full of energy. He gave our bus a nick name. "Habibi" (Arabic for "my beloved") - so everywhere we went, we'd here him shouting "Habibi!" and referring to us as his Habibis. Some of the people on the bus even started calling themselves Habibis. Lol -we were all getting brain washed.

When I think of the Pyramids of Giza - I have the Indiana Jones movie image of having to cross a vast desert on camel to reach them. In reality - we got off the bus at the base of the pyramids and I turned around to see the Hard Rock Cafe. So disappointing. I think in the next 5 years the city will surround site all together. The first night we saw a "Sound and Light" show at the Pyramids. It was basically a cheezy Vegas style laser light show on the Pyramids.

Kel and I got to ride camels. It's such a scary experience as they stand up. You don't realize how high up you are on them! Plus they get up with their back legs first so you get thrown forward. :-) I was screeching and nervous giggling the whole way up.

Admist the glory of the Pyramids is the dust of poverty. There are a lot of areas in which we saw garbage (including a dead donkey) in the ditches. Recycling is not important either as the area around the Pyramids are littered with empty/dried up water bottles.

The Egyptian Museum is large and over crowded. There's so much security in Cairo. We get scanned at every site and walk through many metal detectors. The streets are lined with armed guards. Some are even behind metal sheild type of things. I didn't bother asking what it's for. I figure it's incase there's an "incident" and they can safely shoot their machine guns from behind these barriers. The tour guides rushed us through the museum. Because of the lack of space - tour guides were shouting above each other trying to get air space. It only resulted in a night-market-style-screaming-match. Most of the time other guides were mad at ours for talking so loud. :-)

We stayed overnight at a 5 star hotel - the Conrad. The pillows were absolutely to DIE for - so marshmellowy soft! I was trying to figure out how to "borrow" one and bring it back onto the ship. :-) By now Kel and I are use to sleeping in our own beds - lol...not really a "romantic/sexy" honeymoon but that is life under "double occupancy" room layouts. :-) I was just delighted that we scored an "Executive" floor (20th floor out of 24 - the rest of the tour group was on the lower floors, 3-5). How cool is that?!? Jacuzzi bath here I come!!

the love boat

Life on the ship has been pretty good. The majority of the people on the ship are pretty old. I guess it's cause of the time of year we're going. The weather has been variable. Some ports are stinking hot and some are cold and raining. I regret not bringing many things with us - which I fondly remind Kel daily. The list so far:

1. conditioner - the water here is so hard and horrible for my hair. I've been stealing all the bathroom products from each hotel we stay at. The ship is cheap and has only a dispenser for shampoo.
2. laptop - Kel had decided when we booked this vacation that we would live in luxury while on land. Well - that means that all of our hotels are equiped with free internet...yet no laptop. Doh....should have brought it....
3. more ZOOM! - there were so many times when we needed a longer zoom lens for the camera....being on the ship - we're far from the things that I want to take pictures of. Plus there were occasions were having a smaller camera would have been good - like sticking a camera into the hole of a sarcophagus
4. another camera - having one camera between the 2 of us was sometimes futile as we struggled to capture what each thought was important
   
5. papyrus - in Egypt we went to the papyrus institute. Papyrus is that reed paper that Egyptions use to write on. Anyhow we had the opportunity to get one professionally made just for us. Kel thought it wouldn't go with our "Ikea" decor so he said no. We ran into a couple of other honeymooners our age and they got the famous "honeymoon scene" made with their names in cartuses and their wedding date. How romantic! Kel says "how cheesy!"
6. shoes - in the haste to pack - we forgot to bring more formal shoes. We only have runners and thongs. We celebrated our one-week anniversary at a swanky steak house. Looked kinda funny in our nice clothes and not so nice shoes. :-)

Overall the trip is going well. We're seeing and experiencing a lot of different traditions. We're trying to document most of it through pictures. :-) One thing we didn't get on the camera was our super-expensive spa treatment. We had a seaweed wrap and massage. It was Kel's first time wearing see-through underwear for a room full of esthetians. I think he was super embarrassed. I laughed as it was a "couples treatment" and I've reached the age where I alright walking around in my naked-flabbyness. You should have seen the look of horror on Kel's face when they told him that he would have to wash the seaweed off his body for the second part of the treatment. Less just say the see-through shorts became wet kleenex. Hahahha!!! We were feeling pretty ZEN after the massage - though I telling him he was disturbing my zen with his groaning and wincing (he had asked his girl to "beat him up" on the massage table as she was petite and didn't look very powerful). Oh did he ever get a beating! Lol...beware of what you ask for! Our zen dissipated when we got our bill. $600!! We blinked a couple of times and signed the bill. The thing about the ship is that we all have these magical cards that allow us to buy anything without ever having to pull out our wallets. The card also is our ticket on and off the ship, plus it is also our room key. They are are the only thing we carry so we never know how much we're spending as it all goes on our "tab". I think this is the point...

Anyhow - time to go find Kel. He's playing in another poker tournament and I'm left to amuse myself (again). The last time he got to the final table but didn't win.

Corfu

Corfu aka Kerkyra

The weather was windy and raining today. Luckily I had a hood on my jacket. Kel and I joined a tour called "Timeless Villages". We were suppose to visit all the small villages on the island. What we ended up doing is spending 6 hours on the tour bus driving around. Kel was very disappointed and wanted to cancel all future tours with the ship. The highlight of the bus ride was that the driver is spectacular and can maneuver through super thin streets with ease. There were points where if I could open my window - I'd be able to touch the window pane of the house beside the road. We had a near miss though - a car came swiftly down a hill and didn't see us. He plowed into the side of the hill and the bus driver screeched to a stop. Luckily no one was hurt.

We visited the Monastery of the Virgin Mary where many cats reside. The town appears to be littered with kittens. The tour guide said that in Greece they rarely spay/neuter their pets and that at the end of the tourist season - the cats get euthenized. So sad - but it's the tourist that keep them healthy and strong during the summer with all the scrap food. Haven't seen many stray dogs though...too bad as I'd love to see a puppy!