Do your taxes. Don't do your taxes.

Happy holidays

Happy Thanksgiving to the Canadians. Happy Columbus Day to the Americans. Happy normal day to everyone else.

Whirlwind Tour

Vacation! Weee, I just got back from a vacation to Colorado, sadly without Mister Matt, but his absence was somehow appropriate as I was revisiting a pre-Matt time in my life. The main reason for the trip was that one of my college roommates got married. I hadn't seen anyone from college since I graduated five and half years ago, so the visit was long overdue. It's strange how a change of scenery and the company of some friends from the dorms can revert you back to 19 years old.

I would post pictures but I was a moron and forgot to pack my camera. Here are some highlights of the trip. You'll have to use your imaginations to make up the images:

• Seeing Harold, Mar, Crazy Andy, Alley, Woolfe, and The Greek for the first time in over five years.


• Taking one name off my People From College Who Don't Talk To Me Anymore list. Sadly, it's a bit of a long list.


• Eating Mexican food (made by real Mexicans!) and drinking margaritas.


• An absolutely gorgeous drive from Denver to Pagosa Springs (and back again). More beautiful than should be allowed.


• My first ever dip in natural hot springs. Mmmmm hot springs.


• Einstein's Bagels and Target.


• Hanging out with Mar for an action-packed 48 hours.


• Wine with Harold and Quinn the plumber.


• Eating at Watercourse, my sister's favorite veggie resto in D-town.


• Off-roading in an Impala along a muddy ridge overlooking a rushing creek in the San Juan Mountains... and then reversing back out at high speed. Without dying.


• Seeing that The Breakfast Palace is still there... whew!


• Visiting Alley's coffee shop.


• A trip to the Dikeou Collection.


• Drinking American microbrew beer.


• Driving around the DU campus, marveling at all the new buildings and laughing that the library building still sounds and smells the same. And I sat in the (now cleaned and reupholstered) egg chair.


• Oh yeah, and a wedding in a beautiful aspen grove!

4th of July in Canada

Today has been rainy and cool. In short, crappy weather for the 4th of July. Even if there were supposed to be fireworks tonight, they would have been rained out. Our inaugural use of the football helmet mini grill coincided with the heaviest rains of the day (and the best crash of thunder I've heard in this country yet, which caused me to pump my fist in the air and cry out, "WOOOO!"). The grilled corn was tasty if not local, as were the traditional Independence Day root beer floats, but it was just not the same spending the 4th of July indoors on a gray, rainy day.

So I spent the day researching Canadian brand presence. Actually, I didn't. But I did just come across this article on the CBC website that lists the top ten iconic Canadian brands. They are the following:

1. Cirque du Soleil


2. Ski-Doo


3. CBC


4. Roots


5. Toronto Maple Leafs


6. Montreal Canadians


7. Calgary Stampede


8. IMAX


9. CN Tower


10. Terry Fox

I'm not sure how accurate this list is, as the agency who compiled the list admits that these were "not necessarily the most valuable iconic brands, but were the special favourites of our panel." I guess as an American, and therefore an outsider, I shouldn't speculate on iconic Canadian brands. But as an American, and this being the 4th of July, I feel it is my patriotic duty to butt in and have my say. And my say is thus: I didn't know Ski-Doo, IMAX, and Roots were Canadian companies. Upon arriving in Montreal, I was in fact confused as to why all these Canadians had Roots logos all over everything when the US Olympic athletes had Roots logos on their outfits in Athens.

I have much to learn about Canada. But not today. Today is for stars and stripes! I'm going to see if I can find fireworks on TV.

We love carbs

Matt got The Bread Baker's Apprentice for his birthday from my mom. (His response was, "Danger Kitty, we're gonna destroy this thing.") Yesterday, Matt helped me make my first loaf of bread. It actually started the night before, as I had to make a starter, but the baking was yesterday, and this is what we got out of it:



I'm pretty proud. It was tasty. There is just a tiny bit left today, and I bet it will be gone before nightfall.

A couple days ago, on Easter, Matt made us hot cross buns since all the stores were closed, and we couldn't buy any. The recipe made six. We ate them all that night. Here's a picture of the last one to be devoured:

Pee-Wee loves me

Check out what I got from Pee-Wee Herman. (I don't check that email account very often or I would have seen it earlier!)

The last two weeks I worked and worked and worked like a crazy person. I racked up 90 hours in ten straight days. The most I worked in a day was 15 hours this past Thursday, although the Monday of that week was a close second, coming in at 12 hours plus an hour of commuting time. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

BUT! Some good came of it all. I produced two games for Telus Mobility: a text messaging game that challenges you to translate textspeak into real English and a picture/video messaging game featuring monkeys.

I also kicked out a holiday card for SHS where you can design your own ugly holiday sweater and view a gallery of sweaters that others have made. I highly recommend this site. I usually get sick of my projects, especially if I have had to produce them quickly as I did this one, but I keep going back to see what new sweaters people have created. I am really impressed with the number of people interacting with the site. As of this moment, there are 346 sweaters in the gallery. With user-generated content sites, the general rule of thumb is that 1% of people who visit the site will actually contribute something. I think this site blows that 1% statistic away!

Thanksgiving #2

On Thursday, we had our second Thanksgiving feast of the year -- this time on American Thanksgiving and in Boston with Kris And Friends. This picture of Kris and Porky Roy sums it all up for me.