Hello...Remember Me?

Wow! I've been absent from this whole blog thing for quite some time. We'll tough! I've been busy.
Just got back a few days ago from an awesome time in the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
Jason put so much hard work and effort into planning the details that the trip went off pretty much seamlessly and we saw so much of the country. Honestly, had it been left up to me, we probably would have visited 3 or 4 beach towns and Auckland. I just can't plan like Jason. I don't know if it's laziness, self-inflicted brain damage from "moderate alcohol abuse", or just plain ol' scatterbraininess (I just made that word up...I'm sure you could win a challenge on that one in Scrabble). Either way, I look at him with deep respect for his meticulous planning ability. Some might call it OCD, but not me. I'm grateful.
Anyway, I'm back now and hopefully I'll get those creative writing juices flowing again.
So while I'm here, let's examine the whole scatterbraininess of my being, shall we? A few months ago (and for the second time), I participated in a personal profile assessement with a company that tells you your colour. I know, it sounds new-agey, but it was pretty accurate on most points. The participant is asked a series of about 100 questions (each with 4 possible answers that describe behaviours) and they must rank all 4 behaviours with a number. A 4-colour profile is then built, based on your respones. The 4 colours represent different personality traits. In a nutshell, blue=analytical, red=assertive & goal oriented, yellow=creative and empathetic and green=collaborative. According to the profiler, each person has a specific combination of these colours in an order of preference.
Know what colours were my least preferred on both occasions that I took the test? Blue and red. Not the end of the world, you might be thinking, but my chosen career as a Business Analyst might indicate otherwise. However, my most preferred colours are green and yellow and that is probably what compensates for my aversion to blue/red. You see, analysis is only one part of my job. I must also spend a huge chunk of my time meeting, emailing, and phoning people to ensure that everyone understands and is working toward a common goal (yay green). Additionally, I have to write documents that can convey what the business wants in a way that the progammers/developers can understand (yay yellow). Don't get me wrong, I still have to be a red sometimes in order to get things done and of course none of it can happen unless I'm a blue sometimes in order to understand what the real business needs are. But in the end, I'm truely a green/yellow. Jason, on the other hand is a blue/yellow.
I wonder if, like in the Chinese horoscope, there are bad combinations? Would a strong red and a strong yellow even out to an orange? And is orange a bad colour? Would it be better to mix blue and green to get teal?
My head hurts.

Sidewalk Cyclists

I was on my way home from work on Friday and I walked past two beat cops issuing a ticket to a cyclist either for riding his bike on the sidewalk (despite there being a bike lane on the road) or for not wearing a helmet, or both. I had a little smile inside because I really hate bikers weaving between pedestrians on the sidewalk! It's called a sideWALK for a pretty obvious reason! Anyway, the really ridiculous part of this story is that as I continued on my walk home, I passed another cyclist on the sidewalk, about half a block away from where the cops were issuing their ticket. I stopped, turned around, and watched the unhelmeted, cyclist ride all the way along the sidewalk and up to the cops, who promptly stopped her and issued her a ticket too. WTF? You could plainly see that the cops were issuing a ticket to another cyclist on the sidewalk. Did she think that they would be too busy to notice her sailing by?
This is what can happen when you spend your day self-absorbed and oblivious to the world around you. Hopefully now they will have learned from this and we have two less sidewalk cyclists to contend with in this neighbourhood.

Pam Ann Live

After the last post, I thought I should follow up with something fun. The reason we all went to The Arts Club Theatre was to see Pam Ann. If you haven't seen her before, you need to. Here's her classic sketch. Sorry about the quality but it is bootlegged after all!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__pgMarIJ_Y

Ahh, Customer Service

FYI. This is going to be a bit of a rant today.
I got into a cab on Saturday night with Jason and Klaus and asked the driver to take us to Granville Island. The driver graciously halted his cell phone conversation long enough to repeat "Granville Island" to me and looked at me with raised eyebrow, waiting for a confirmation. I replied in the affirmative and the cabbie then mumbled a long series of words in an unfamiliar language to the person on the other end of the phone conversation. The intonation in his voice implied he was asking a question and the only words I recognized were, you guessed it, "Granville Island". I repeated our destination to him and added that we were going to the Arts Club Theatre, at which point he repeated "Arts Club Theatre" into the phone. After a brief pause, we were on our way.
WTF?
I know I have high expectations of people. I also know that it could have been his first day on the job but for God's sake, Granville Island is a big tourist attraction in Vancouver, on par with the Aquarium, Gastown, English Bay and the like. How could a cab driver not know where it is?
On top of that, the telephone conversation must have been very important since he didn't put the phone down during the entire trip, except to collect his fare.
Another shining example of what customer service has devolved into.

Happy Belated New Year

I know I should have updated this blog sooner, and I really have nothing else to blame but my habitual disinclination to exertion (i.e. laziness).
By now, most of my friends will have heard that I had a great Christmas holiday in Fairmont, with one exception...THE TERROR ON LAKE WINDERMERE! Suffice to say that the lesson I learned is that you should be really certain that the ice can bear the weight of your vehicle before you drive out onto a frozen lake.

If a picture says a thousand words then these should be worthy of a novel.

Happy Holidays!

I'll keep this one short and sweet...

I'm off to Fairmont Hotsprings for a Tataren Family Christmas.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANNUKAH, HAPPY KWANZAA, HAPPY EID AND HAPPY ANY OTHER RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY I'VE OVERLOOKED!

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