Archive for January, 2008
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a bumpy road to ski mastery.
By Karen | Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Kurt hails from a family of excellent skiers. No mean feat considering they resided in one of the flattest provinces in Canada. And I, living next door to Whistler, can only vaguely attest to having fallen up a bunny hill during a sixth grade field trip.
This Christmas, we decided that it was high time to get on the mountain and teach me how to ski. Kurt considered teaching me himself, but with his current knee injury, we instead signed me up for proper lessons at one of the local hills. It is somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Kurt as ski instructor + my fear of heights + his impatience and recklessness = me zooming down the runs in hysteria and giving up all hope of ever going down a mountain again.
The ladies-only instruction at Mount Seymour has been a blast. Nine of us were assigned to the absolute-beginners group during Lesson #1. We learned how to fall down and get up as the first order of business. After familiarizing ourselves with cross-country and uphill skiing (and getting terribly out of breath in the process), we tackled the bunny hill. It surprises me now how gentle the slope is. My body remembers it differently. The hill had yawned in front of me like an abyss. Liquid fear coursed through my veins at the thought of going down. I yelped with terror every time my elevation dropped faster than a centimetre per second. But by the end of the night, the nerves started to lesson and I actually began to enjoy the swoosh of the skis and the softness of the snow underfoot.
The second lesson built upon the first. We left the bunny hill after the first hour and took turns getting videotaped going down a section of the adjacent run. Took a moment to take shots of the hill and a quick clip of Trisha during her video analysis. Was a little worried about the chairlift, as I am afraid of heights and easily hit with vertigo, but it was a lot easier to sit in that chair than it was to traverse those terrifying floating escalators on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong!
Alas, the third time up Mount Seymour was not without its trials and tribulations. Three of us were relegated to the intermediate-beginners section. It was a sudden switch that must have gotten me apprehensive, since I proceeded to fall all over the same slope that I skied so confidently down the week before. One fall was particularly nasty. Must have caught an edge while going too fast over a steep bit. Before I knew it, my face hit the ground in front of me and I felt my brain jiggle into the back of my skull…not the most pleasant of sensations. Goggles and toque were buried in the snow a few metres away. One ski had disconnected with my boot and was in the hands of my concerned instructor. (Later I would discover all the tiny scrapes on my face and a gigantic purply-red bruise on my left bum cheek that is the likely source of my limp.) The fall was certainly a blow to the ego, but it was only 15 minutes into the lesson! Dusted the snow off, reminded myself not to be such a giant wuss, and steeled myself for the next hour and 45 minutes to go.
Already feeling bad for dragging the rest of the group behind, I refused to be the one to say no to trying a new run. So off we went up the Mystery Chair to the peak. We spent the first half along the green Manning run (I fell somewhere there too, trying to avoid a snowboarder!) and opted to go down the treacherously named Elevator Shaft for the rest of the journey down. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. By the time we got to the bottom, the accomplishment of having conquered a long run re-established some of the confidence that was wiped out by the lovely face wash earlier in the night.
Thank goodness for the instructor and fellow students! They were all so encouraging despite my frequent falls. We took pictures after the lesson and a bunch of us wound down with a bit of apres-ski.
What a journey…and sadly, it is nearly over. Only one more lesson left before we are left to our own devices. Hopefully I can report happy tidings next week and deliver some DSLR-quality shots of Mount Seymour for your viewing pleasure!
gone over to the dark side.
By Karen | Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Yes, it’s true. It’s goodbye PC; hello iMac.
Our toy came home yesterday evening while I was out on my harrowing skiing adventure–more on that in a separate post. Within 10 minutes of opening the box, what’s-a-computer Kurtis had created his profile, created an avatar using the built-in webcam, and reacquainted himself with PokerStars.net (now for Mac). Very impressive.
My priorities were a little different. Fiddled with iPhoto, installed Adium, and tested iChat’s video capabilities with Jason into the wee hours of the night. Next installations include Adobe CS3 and MS Office 2008.
But someone please teach me keyboard shortcuts! I am lost without them…
vote for me, please.
By Karen | Thursday, January 24th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Perhaps you’ve sat with me at lunch or dinner and tolerated my incessant food photography. You may at some point have donated a sampling of your meal or evaluated a dish so that it could be included in my blog review. Please do me one more favour, pretty please with a cherry on top…
Go to www.mealmax.com, look at the entries for the Your Vancouver Dine-Out Experience Contest, and vote for all of the restaurant reviews that you like. Hopefully (with batted lashes / shaking fist, whichever eggs you on better) those reviews are mine!
I’ve written one about Chambar so far but there will be more from me in the next few weeks.
Voting is between now and February 29th, with winners announced March 5th. Please stop by and help a girl out! (You can also submit reviews yourself if you want in on the $500 top prize.)
Thanks with many hugs and kisses!!
good for a geeky chuckle.
By Karen | Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
While doing some light reading this lunch hour from Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS, I came across this bit of techie humour:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary math and those who don’t.
Admit it, you laughed. You know who you are.
be forever linked to the 2010 olympics.
By Karen | Friday, January 11th, 2008 | No Comments »
Looking for something to do this weekend? Why not immortalize your John Hancock by autographing the roof of the new Olympic Skating Oval in Richmond?
Read this article for the details.
skating with the boys.
By Karen | Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 | No Comments »
Kurt encouraged me to go out on our usual Saturday “date night”, as he wanted some quality time at home with Mr. HDTV and Mr. Plethora of Football Championships. Having brought home my figure skates that the in-laws gave me a few years back, I called up the usual weekend folk to see who was up for some ice skating.
We had more trouble than we should have had to find out how to enter the West End Community Centre after hours (it’s the side door next to the parking lot entrance…the last door we tried, of course). But despite that hiccup, we managed a good hour and a half of ice rink enjoyment.
Bruce and Chris tried to teach me how to do a proper stop on the ice, as my usual method is to slam into the rink wall:
Turns out I am a poor student. This does not bode well for the skiing lessons that I get into on Monday…
on being tiny.
By Karen | Monday, January 7th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Hear, hear…for the most part.
Like Ching-Yin, I fall victim to the pitfalls of being short and slender. Inaccessible shelves. The world of Nine West forever barred to me. Dangling feet syndrome on all manner of chairs. Jars that mock my freakishly small and weak hands. The absence of curves (sigh). Try getting all your lingerie and business attire from La Senza Girl and Gap Kids without crying yourself to sleep each night. So it used to bug me that some women think that being skinny and small naturally equated to having it better in general.
But over the years I’ve found that there are small comforts to being tiny. Less sales tax for buying junior sizes. The ability to disappear behind a telephone pole when necessary. And the newest and most surprising of advantages…aging and weight gain can be your friend.
Post-quarter-century Karen, who no can longer claim to be 80lbs, have a size 23 waist, or fit a AA cup, benefited greatly from gaining a few pounds and a few years. I can now shop on the fringes of women’s fashion! 98% of adult-sized clothing is still unavailable to me, but XXS and 00 are welcome sights where once I sought out size 8 Youth. And thanks to gravity and that good ol’ biological clock, the curves have finally appeared (but seriously, where were you when I was 16?).
So all you teensy, possibly less endowed women out there, don’t be sad if you pack on a few. Look forward to putting on those baby-making hips and rejoice at the brief but pleasant aftereffects of gravity!
christmas photos are up.
By Karen | Friday, January 4th, 2008 | No Comments »
Happy 2008 to all!
The Flickr album containing all the Christmas pics from Winnipeg and Gimli is now complete. I started to shoot in RAW in December, which I am now a huge fan of, but it does mean that you have to manually generate a JPEG for each RAW image you want to post to Flickr. That amounted to editing over 200 photos for the better part of this week. Holy tedium, batman!
Here’s our Christmas wrap-up:
We arrived in Winnipeg on the 21st and were greeted by the parents and a little snowstorm. Much joy reuniting with the immediate family–now grown to 11 people–and catching up with Winnipeg friends before our journey northward. Highlights included swing dancing with Nathan and Irene, hanging with the Hamilton kids at Boston Pizza for some big-screen guitar hero, and visiting Aunt Edna and Wendy.
We trekked over to Gimli on Christmas Eve. The drive was only 1.5 hours, but when you have an irritated cat whining in her cage every few seconds, it feels a lot longer! The cottage (if you can still use the term for this giant 3-lot property) is a mere 5 minutes away from the shore of Lake Winnipeg, which has frozen over for the winter. We spent the rest of the day decorating the tree; savouring Mom’s traditional Christmas Eve feast of greek salad, tortiere, and buche noel; and fighting over the Christmas pickle. Kurt found it with his usual rough-and-tumble methods, but Jared managed to steal away Kurt’s prize for a moment.
Christmas Day was wonderful as always but there were a few blips to our bliss. Kaleigh, who meant to join us in the morning from Winnipeg, was hit with wave after wave of migraines and had to be rushed to the Winnipeg and Gimli hospitals over the course of the day. Kurt tore his MCL (the ligament on his inside right knee) after a ball hockey incident with the fam. As he is currently training for a half-marathon on February 10th, we took him to the Gimli hospital in case the tear was more serious than we thought. He is still limping to this day but the Vancouver doctors think that he should still be able to run the half as long as Kurt doesn’t overdo it.
On Boxing Day, I went for a photowalk with Mel and Andy, traversing the lake to visit the ice fishing shacks about 2km out. What a great adventure! We had to wade through knee-high snowdrifts along the shore and figure out whether it was safe to cross a foot-wide fissure that spanned the lake. After we saw three snowmobiles jump it in succession, we figured it could accommodate our 3 bodies gingerly stepping over it.
The ice fishing huts were unoccupied save for one. The fisherman that greeted us was packing for home, but indulged Andy and I with photo ops of him and his frozen catch. It also helped that he was enamored with Mel (”Would you like a second boyfriend?”).
The family spent that evening at the Bells in East St. Paul. Susan made the most delicious lentil salad that had Lindsay, Mel, and I going for multiple helpings. The kids played a rousing game of Cranium Wow in the living room while the men had an impromptu whiskey tasting and game of dice nearby. The Hamiltons cleaned up in the dice game, with Bob, Nicky, and Kurt all winning a round or two. But my wallet didn’t appreciate the added bulk of $20 in quarters!
Us girls went on a shopping spree at Tergesen’s the next day followed by a tour of the Gimli Gingerbread Village at the nearby Icelandic Museum. The rest of the time in Gimli was real mellow. Lots of food, lots of Scrabble and Catchphrase, and lots of quality time with the Hamiltons.
We got back to Winnipeg earlier than I anticipated, so the 29th was happily spent with Melissa Raquid. We caught up over lunch at Dandelion Eatery (highly recommended) and had another shopping spree along the little boutiques of Osborne Village. You wouldn’t think it, but Gimli and Winnipeg are excellent stops for funky attire!
Met up with Melissa again for a homecooked meal at her and Ryan’s. Let’s just say we had an entertaining evening =) Ryan’s friend showed up with the most amazing earring, and I couldn’t stop taking photos of their cute bulldogs. We ended the night with a bit of salsa dancing, just like old times. We even ran into fellow Vancouverites Irene and Sandra. Melissa is keen to get back into salsa now, and it too reminded me to stop working so hard and to make time for dance in the new year.
So that’s it…we are so happy to have spent the week with our beloved friends and family. Hope we get to see you all again within the year, as next Christmas is in the Philippines!
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