Another birthday another U.S. Open

Is it sad that I think the best thing about my birthday is that the U.S. Open will always start just shortly after?

It was my birthday on Thursday and I didn't do anything really exciting but today the U.S. Open started. Now that we've switched to Shaw I don't have to miss a single point (well that's not exactly true since they don't televise every game). Not only can I record the games but I can also watch them in HD (provided my brother doesn't want to watch wrestling).

Last night I watched my first football game in HD. It was pretty awesome, even if it was only pre-season.

The 3 month itch

That's right it's been 3 months since I've been to work. Everyone tells me that I should take it slow but now that I'm starting to feel a little bit better I want to jump right in with both feet. I've been having a little trouble with staying on task the last couple of days though, hopefully that will get better. Anyways I've got 4 weeks of treatment left and then hopefully I'll be ready to go back. I'm just getting bored.

Oh I wish I had my laptop back. I've been using my brother's computer to do stuff but it's really really really slow and crappy and I miss the portability. I've considered getting a wireless card for my desktop but then I think what's the point since I won't use it once my laptop comes back. Have I mentioned that I hate computers.

Every day it gets a little bit easier

I was a little bit skeptical about starting these new treatments but I think they're helping. I'm starting to feel somewhat normal again. I'm getting excited for football season and the U.S. Open tennis and even hockey season.

A couple of days ago I saw people from my work on the bus and I didn't quite know what to say. I wasn't sure how much they already knew and I didn't want to give out more information than I needed to. So I just didn't say anything. Today I saw someone else that I work with on the bus and I even got up and moved closer. It was good that it was someone that I'm really comfortable with and who kind of knew what was going on without me really having to tell her and she seemed genuinely excited to see me too.

So yeah some day I might be able to transfer buses infront of my work and not feel like I'm about to bawl. And that will be the first sign that maybe I can think about going back. Until then I'll just continue to take it one day at a time.

Folklorama Llama

I love Folklorama. For those of you who aren't from Manitoba and don't know what Folklorama is it's a cultural celebration over 2 weeks in which residents of Manitoba celebrate their origins. Or something like that. It's broken up into different pavilions where you can buy food and souvenirs and watch entertainment provided by cultural groups representing their pavilion (a lot of singing and dancing).

This year I've been to 7 shows. Columbia, Belgium, Slovenia, Alpine (Switzerland/Austria/Germany), and 2 different Ukrainian Pavilions. I'm going to take in one more show tonight and that will be the end of Folklorama for me this year. If you ever get a chance to go to Folklorama you should do it. They often have bus tours that bring people from all over Canada and the United States. But be prepared to spend money. I've had to go to the bank twice since it started to get more money for the shows.

update to arrg...

I talked to the company that I bought my computer from and they said that they were able to ship it off to the manufacturer today. Hooray.

The Mid Summer update.

I know it's been a while since my last post but a couple of things have been happening. First is the still unresolved computer issue. The second is that I've started a new treatment for my illness so I have to go to the hospital every day. Don't worry though it's just until things stabilize a little bit. But anyway that's why I haven't been around much.

I have been reading up a storm though. I've been thinking that maybe I should start a book club. It was be more of a social activity than I'm used to and I DO love to read. Anyone interested?

arrg...

So you know how I was saying last year that I love my laptop well now I don't. It's got major crashage issues and because I decided not to run internet into my bedroom and just went wireless I don't have internet so I stuck using my brother's crap-puter. No seriously this thing is a piece of junk and he's constantly trying to download stuff so it's always really slow. And the company I bought my computer from is having trouble communicating with the company that made my computer and I'm stuck in the middle sans computer.

I miss the old days. When life was simple and my parents fought my battles for me. Or at least owned everything I used so they were responsible for getting things fixed.

It's so boring at home

In case you've missed it the first several times I mentioned it I've been off work since the end of May. The first month flew by but July seems to be going on forever. I'm hopefully going to start a day program in August which will at least keep me busy and hopefully help me with some of the stress issues that I've been dealing with.

But for now I'm bored. I used to think that I wanted to work until I had enough money to retire and then just sit around and read books all day but even that has lost it's appeal. I've been doing alot of knitting lately but even that's boring. I guess I'm going to have to take up some other hobby.

Things I wish I was at work to say

I've been off work for almost 2 months now and despite what you might think it kind of blows. The highlight of my day is going to Tim Horton's though I have to say in a fight between the Starbucks Caramel Machiatto and the Timmy Ho's iced Mocha I'd pick the Mocha every time.

That being said there are some things and people at work that I miss. If I was at work right now some of the things I would say are:

• My trip was amazing. I love Scotland but everything is uber expensive
• Shark week starts on August 3rd (KEG tell Mike I told you to tell him this, he'll know what you mean)
• I'm with the guys on switching to Shaw, which I will be doing at the end of August
• I miss everyone terribly and I'm hoping to come back soon

but the first thing I'm going to do when I get back is give people my home e-mail so that I can get e-mails. I miss getting random follow up e-mails about random topics left over from our lunchtime debates.

I must look like I need saving

Okay I don't often discuss religion but I'm going there today. I am an atheist. There have just been things in my life that some people would call "challenges" that have lead me to be a non-believer. But I certainly don't discourage other people from believing. I know a lot of people for whom their relationship with God has been a great strength and I am extremely happy for them. I just don't like people pushing it on me.

If I want to hear about your beliefs I'll go to church or temple or whatever with you. But for some reason I seem to be approached by those spreading the word of God more often than the average person and frankly it makes me a little bit angry.

The Update

Alright there has been a lot of stuff going on recently so I'm just going to try to throw everything into this one post.

• On the illness front I'm still off work. I'm hoping to return late this summer or early fall but we'll see what the doctor says.
• My laptop is broken. Well not completely broken but it's randomly shutting down for no reason and I haven't been able to get it down to the shop for repairs yet. It's only started doing this since we got back from our trip.
• I currently have 3 books on the go. That's reading not writing. One is the next Diana Gabaldon book from the Outlander series. One is a history of Scotland and one is a romance novel that I borrowed from the library.
• I got a new cat. and by new I mean new like I got him today new. The Humane Society had a sale on cats and since I wanted a new one anyway this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I've named him Davey Crockcat. Yes I'm just that geeky.

It's almost over

2:59 Pm London Time

We're back in Glasgow now and we've parted way with the others. We fly out of here tomorrow and spend about 19 hours before we get to our final destination.

I have some more pictures to add to my blog but I left my SD card upstairs in our hotel room and I don't really want to go up and get it so I'll add them later. Since wireless is only available in the hotel lounge.

We're staying in the same hotel that was stayed in at the beginning of our trip so it's like we're back tracking our steps now which is kind of neat.

Our day in Edinburgh and at the show

7:01 PM London Time

It's been a while since I did an entry. There has just been so much to see that the days were packed and I have been really tired. Today was a shorter day. Mom and I went into Edinburgh city centre today where I bought a new ring and bracelet as well as some souvenirs for my brothers at home. We saw the castle and Holyroodhouse Palace but we weren't able to enter them because the Queen was in residence at the palace and we ran out of time at the castle.

As for the Royal Highland sow it was pretty damn good. The show itself was interesting. There were a lot of things that they did differently over here than we would but overall it was mostly the same. As for the grounds they were pretty huge. There was all sorts of things to do and see. There was a sheep shearing competition and crafter's tents and an outdoor living section with chainsaw sculpting demonstrations and pole climbing exhibitions. It was very interesting. Oh and the Queen was at the show too but we missed her.

Tomorrow we head up to the Highlands. It's supposed to be beautiful scenery and I'm sure there will be lots of pictures taken.

9 Pm London Time

Yesterday we were in Portree in the Isle of Skye. We took a drive around the island and then returned to the hotel. I'm now done all of my gift shopping so anything else I buy should be just for me. Today we're just outside of Fort William at a B&B. Fort William is an outdoor town.. It's right on a lack and the highest mountain peak in the UK is right here. I of course hate the outdoors so this is not my kind of town.

Also our traveling companions are starting to get on my last nerve. I don't want to stereotype Americans because I do know a lot of really nice ones but these ones are obnoxious. For example we left the Isle of Skye early this morning and hopped on the ferry back to the mainland (or at least as much of a main land as you can consider a larger island). Anyway we arrived at the B&B an hour before check in which I knew would happen because we left so early. So we drove all the way back to Fort William for an hour of shopping but only an hour because our driver was tired. And he wanted to come back and unpack the van and then maybe we could drive back to Fort William. It turned out okay though because daddy and me took a little nap before supper and mom did some reading.

For supper we took a ferry to a little restaurant/inn. It was really nice and I got to see most of the Andy Roddick/Lleyton Hewitt match on the TV in the bar. Roddick of course won. I can't believe I'm in Britain during Wimbledon and I'm not there.

In search of Nessie.

5:39 PM London time

Today was probably the best day of our trip so far. it started off a little shaky, I got up really early, unnecessarily. And then we got out of the hotel too early and nothing was open which meant a lot of useless walking around. I should be used to this walking around by now. My mother loves to just walk around. Personally I'm not a huge fan AND the blisters on my feet were screaming at me to stop. Then we got on a Jacobite tour of Loch Ness. First we bussed from Inverness to the Loch. Then we jumped on a boat to go to Urquhart Castle which is really just the ruins of an old castle but that's what you see in a lot of pictures of Loch Ness. Anyway then we hit up the visitors centre there before getting back on the bus again to get to the Loch Ness exhibition centre. It was really interesting. I'm rather convinced now that the Loch Ness monster is a giant sturgeon.

Then we came back to Inverness on the bus and found a used book store where I picked up some book including a history of Scotland. I love books stores. I also love museums which is what we did before returning to our hotel.

Our vacation Act II

8:31 London Time

For those of you who have been trying to follow my trip each day I do apologize for the sparseness of my blogging. I have only had free WiFi at one hotel that we've stayed at and well frankly I don't want to spend the money for the ridiculous internet rate over here. So that's what's been happening. That's also why you'll see some backdated entries.

Okay now on with the vacation update. Today we drove from Edinburgh to Inverness. The day started off kind of disastrous. We didn't get as big of a vehicle as we thought we would and we weren't sure if we could fit all the people and luggage into the van (there are 6 of us traveling in a 7 passenger van). But we packed it in there pretty tight and just barely made it.

The people we're traveling with are kind of difficult. Although this trip has been pretty difficult for me since I was the only person under 50 on the first part of the tour. One of the people that we're traveling with makes me particularly uneasy. And given such close quarters it's difficult to avoid him.

Tonight we actually went for supper at a restaurant owned by the cousins of one of the farmers we went to see on the earlier portion of our trip. It was very good. Funny story we ran into a tour guide outside the visitor's centre and told him where we wanted to eat and he laughed. He said he'd never been asked where that particular restaurant was and asked who recommended it. Then we had a nice little chat and we might go on one of his tours tomorrow. We'll see how we feel.

Tomorrow we're going to try to get on a boar cruise of Loch Ness. Of course I'll be keeping an eye out for Nessie. I'm almost done all of my shopping for this trip, at least the souvenirs for other people part. The rest of it I haven't quite decided.

Cattle Day

10:54 PM London time

Today was the first day of the cattle portion of our trip. I haven't been on the farm fr a while so I've kind of lost the ability to pick a good animal in a herd, but anyway. There was nothing really eventful today. Although I've noticed that they feed you really well on this trip. I do love e some food. We even had entertainment for our evening meal. It was a jazz band, they were pretty good for all I know about jazz music.

The first day of the rest of my vacation

9:05 PM London time

So we've left Scotland and come back south to northern England to meet the rest of our crew. We're in the lake district and well these lakes are not exactly the most awesome lakes I've ever seen. I live in between 2 lakes that would be considered ginormous compared to these. Here's a picture that I took of the lake.

Here's another little detail that I failed to omit in my previous post mostly because if I had he would have read it over my shoulder but my seatmate from Montreal to London was super cute. I chatted him up for a while but it's hard to be flirty when your father is sitting in the seat in front of you. Anyway he was on transit to Israel and his name was Zach.

Alright moving on. Today we went to Gretna Green to meet the rest of our tour. Here's the deal with Gretna Green, way back in the day people didn't exactly have weddings. They just kind of said "hey we're married". Then a law was passed in England and the legal age was 21 and you had to get married in a church. But the law didn't apply to Scotland and the age of consent was 16. So English couples would trek over the border and Gretna Green was the first town they'd come to, so they'd get married in the Blacksmith's shop. We saw a mock wedding and visited the little shops and museum. One cool thing is that you can still get married or blessed there. Oh and they had a bagpiper (left) that you could hire out.

As I said we're in England but we're going back to Scotland the day after tomorrow.

Welcome to Scotland

8:47 PM London Time

I think I'm going to like it here the first thing I saw once we had gotten through the baggage claim here in Glasgow was Starbucks. It's reassuring that even so far from home I can find something that's just like home. That's the joy of the franchise industry. It's built for people exactly like me. Here's a picture we took of the special Scottish Edition Starbucks mug.

We just got back from supper in the restaurant in our hotel. Now I don't know if this is just a kind of high class establishment or if there really isn't anything like a hamburger in Scotland. Here's what we hate from supper.

Salad with Goat Cheese, Lamb Chops and Stuffed Chicken Breast

In the Middle of the Night

7:08 PM Montreal Time, 2:08 AM London Time

Wow it sure does get dark when you travel forward into the night. It's probably about midnight outside the plane right now even though it's only 8 PM back home. We're supposed to be landing at 7 AM in London so we've got another 5 hours on this place. Actually it'll probably be a bit longer since we got off a little bit late.

Is it pathetic that I've only been away about 12 hours and I'm about ready to come home? It's just been a long day is all. One down, 10 days to go.