Category: Miscellaneous babble

Happy new year everyone! Hope 2004 brings many happy times and significant accomplishments for everyone.

I plan to spend a good portion of today relaxing in front of the TV flipping between the Mythbusters marathon on Discovery channel and the MadTV marathon on Comedy Central.

Things I want to accomplish this year:

• Finish developing my radiology equipment inventory/survey database more
• Work out more
• Get my wife’s credit card paid off, and a big chunk of my credit card paid down
• Finish some research projects and publish more
• Jazz up this blog a little bit

What is it about the ocean that captivates people? All you see is endless water which makes you feel small and insignificant, which isn’t something many people deal well with.
I grew up inland, never seeing a body of water much larger than a lake. Always thought it was nice, but never had any particular fascination with living near water. Even after visiting both coasts and wetting my feet in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, I never really thought much about the ocean.
But now, after living here for a few years, with the beach and ocean only a few minutes away and marsh in my back yard almost, I don’t think I’d want to live inland again. I don’t own a boat (nor do I really want to), and I don’t surf or do any ocean related activities. I’m not sure what it is I like so much about the ocean. There’s something about looking out onto the ocean and feeling the ocean breeze that just utterly captivates you. The waves come in onto the shore in a hypnotic rhythm, drawing my thoughts further out onto the water. And when I look closer, I see the sea birds gliding on the breeze, shore birds hopping around poking about in the sand for a morsel, or maybe a small crab scurrying about trying to avoid the birds. There are people surfing on the water, others wading in the water close to the beach, or lying on the sand. Looking even closer, there are shells, sometimes jelly fish remains being picked over by the occasional bird, or the broken shell of a small crab. Sand packed hard by the water gives way to softer drier sand. Even closer, are the tiny grains of sand rushing up and down the beach, pushed by the waves. Windblown grains of sand drift over the beach and cover my feet.
All this and more for anyone to discover. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to leave.

Christmas is over with, the endless loop of Christmas music on the radio is done, and life slowly returns to normal.
I think we’ve definitely made our contribution to the economy this holiday season. The last couple of months worth of credit card payments have all been pretty much undone with our holiday spending. That means my initial target date for getting one of our credit cards paid off is pushed back a few months. Well, at least we had fun with it 🙂
All in all, it was a good Christmas this year. Less drama this year (at least I think so…we were mostly busy with cooking). Smaller group over for Christmas this year, which made for a nicer event. Got some strange gifts though. Don’t know what the heck we’re going to do with a 2′ tall wooden Nutcracker doll.
Hope all of you reading had as pleasant a Christmas as we did!

Just back from a fantastic weekend getaway to Tampa Bay, FL. Something we had planned a few months ago, but with all the activity from the wife’s final exams, and Christmas preparations, we had almost forgotten about it.
Spent the day at Busch Gardens on Saturday. Very cool place. Rode 4 roller coasters (Gwazi, Scorpion, Kumba, Montu), saw lots of animals, and even got to feed some giraffes. Missed the rhinos though.
What a great place. Can’t wait to go back again. Go check out the photos at the gallery.

Jay Allen’s entry on hawaiian shirts reminded me of what my friends and I used to do during my undergrad (and graduate) days at U of A.
Our Friday ritual after class was to head up to RATT (Room At The Top), the bar on campus. Usually we’d head up there around noon or so, grab our usual table in the corner and have some lunch and hang out. The guys with afternoon classes would head off, and come back afterwards. Hawaiian shirts (bright and colourful ones) were standard dress on Fridays. Whoever forgot their’s would be the scornpost for the remainder of the night. They made us very identifiable, and very easy to spot in a crowded bar. Also useful as an ice breaker for meeting girls. We became very well known for them. Sometimes, people would pass us by on campus and say “hey, it’s the hawaiian shirt guys!”.
We’d step off the elevator, head to our table and the waitress would meet us there with a couple of pitchers. Food orders would be placed, and the meeting would start.
People would come and go, and come back again. Much fun was had, much schmoozing and lawn mowing was done. Ahh, those were the days 🙂