Saturday was going to be a busy day with a few Before Dawn events scheduled at La Fontana. I was looking to spending a few hours with John and Val but alas, that wasn't meant to be. Grandma had been with my parents for the week and mom and dad had dinner plans. Usually, grandma stays home (she's more than capable of looking after herself) but she's also leaving for Portugal in a few weeks and this would be the last weekend she spent with us. My mom didn't want her to stay home alone so Friday night she asked if I could stay home with her. A wrench for sure but how do you say no to mom and grandma? I couldn't so I decided instead that flaking on prior commitments was the easier way out (lame but what can I say).

Hubby wanted to head out in the morning so we bundled up grandma and too a drive to Horseshoe Bay where we parked, had a leisurely brunch at Trolls and then a nice walk around the water, watching the ferries come in and out of the terminal.

After the walk, we got back into the car and rather than heading home, we convinced grandma that ice cream would be a great idea so we drove over to Deep Cove (can you believe I'd never been there?) for dessert. The streets around the main strip were clogged with cars but a lucky turn of events landed us a great parking spot. We heard some music from a nearby park and ventured to check it out to stumbled on a Dragon Boat event that was going on (thanks to Special K for clarifying what exactly we'd stumbled on).


We watched for a few minutes before moving on to check out the area. I spotted this beautiful water feature which I've named "The Lovers." I didn't think to look for the actual name though if someone knows what it is, please let me know. All I know is that I love this feature a great deal - there's something almost magical about it.


We stopped by La Fontana before heading home to drop off the film and as much as I insisted that grandma come in for coffee, tea or hot chocolate, I couldn't manage to talk her into it and so hubby stayed in the car while I popped in to say hello, mumble a lame ass apology before rushing out. We then headed home for an afternoon of R & R which included dinner and a couple of football games since it was the only thing playing on Portuguese TV and she has little patience for anything in English.

It was a fun filled day and I'm happy to have spent it with grandma. She's usually the stay at home type so I'm happy we managed to get her out for a few hours to see some stuff she hand't seen before. I also hope to see her again before she goes otherwise, it'll be September before we get a peek at her silver hair again. She wouldn't let me take pictures (something about her hair - she's worse than I am when it comes to that), but here she is, watching TV a few months back:


She's as sweet as she looks.

I don't usually participate in these things but some friends sent this out to me on Facebook and I really loved the responses so I did my own. The process is either fool proof or we're just a super talented group of individuals because the results were all pretty spectacular. Here's mine:

And here are the instructions in case you want to play along:

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
"discrimination convention"

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
"Squandering Ourselves for a Purpose"

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to FB with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in. (you can untag yourself if you don't want this photo up)

You can probably skip #5 if you're not interested. If you do play along, be sure to share your images in the comments!

This week isn't starting off too well. Tons to do at work, at home, at school, at life.

Not too much time to post today but I thought I'd share this cool link with everyone. Not sure how many folks out there are David Lynch fans but the man is being honored with an exhibition of his original works at the Cartier Foundation and it's come to my attention that the gallery has posted a great assortment of his works on their website. To access them, including a couple of cool videos, click here, select English (a new window opens), select What's On, then David Lynch: The Air is on Fire, then Views of the Exhibition.

Enjoy and I'll be back tomorrow with a story of how making fun of ESL students can really piss me off.

It was a very long night. I came home to find D and K drinking their little hearts out. I didn't manage shower and go to bed until 1:30 and then I decided that since I only had a few pages left on my book, I'd finish it and start fresh when I woke up. I didn't get to bed until after 2 and this morning I suffered for it. I tried to read but ended up sleeping through the commute. At least I woke myself up during the brisk walk to the office. It's a beautiful day today and though it's a bit colder than yesterday, the lack of rain is a godsent.

With K coming over the last couple of days, I haven't managed to do much of anything when I get home at night which as really put me behind schedule. I have yet to download or listen to my podcasts and I still haven't done the picture taking and downloading. On the other hand, this hardly matters considering my mounting excitement for Friday. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am. It's like I'm going on the biggest trip in years which, believe it or not, the drive to Bellingham will actually the farthest I've been from Vancouver in at least 4 years. Sad but true. I can't wait!

D has found out that he may be getting some backpay (the company owes him back wages to February of this year) on Friday. The problem is, it's sounding like it may only be going back a month. No one knows for sure and they won't know until tomorrow but it'll be interesting how that pans out. D has said that if he gets the money, we're staying in Seattle for the weekend. That would be AWESOME!!!!!! I'll keep you posted on the happenings.

I want to share with you the story of a the first "art work" I ever purchased. At my old job, we had a buy and sell page where people could post stuff for sale. There was a guy who was moving out of his apartment and he was looking to get rid of a bunch of stuff and one of the items caught my eye. It was a gorgeous print and the more I looked at it, the more I loved it. I offered to take it off his hands along with a framed mirror but last minute, he changed his mind on the painting. It haunted me and I searched high and low for it. Seriously, this print was nearly impossible to find. That Christmas, I was working at the mall and as an employee we were entitled to mall discounts including at a discount at one of the framing stores. I went in there and with some help and after looking through every art book they had, I finally spotted the print. With my discount, I paid $300 for the poster, canvas transfer and mounting. It was the best money I've ever spent. The picture is by a Spanish painter named Ramon Pujol and the print is Reflection on a Summer Morning. I'm thinking about having another one made, this time for my hallway and I need some help. Take a look at these and let me know what you think. I'm having a hard time deciding but I'm really liking Resolution and Inception.

Well guys, it's been a busy week and it's going to end on a wet note. No time to spend talking about the weather today though. WAY too much stuff to cover.

Jumping right in. For those of you who have been working on the M&M picture that I posted about on Tuesday, all of the answers can be found here. Sylvia managed to complete the bloody thing in 15 minutes or something crazy like that. Congrats to everyone who tried it!

Yesterday Reuter's reported that Jackson Pollock's No. 5 (on the left) sold for a record breaking $140 million. I've been a fan of Pollock's since high school, the only one of the modern painters I really like but No. 5 is not my favourite painting. That is reserved for No. 30 (below). If I could find a good poster print of this I would buy it and have it canvas transferred. If anyone has spotted a good one either online or somewhere in a store, please let me know!


And for those that don't know much about Pollock and would like to learn more, there's a are some excellent resources here and here. For you visual folks, there's also a great and accurate 2000 biopic called Pollock directed and starring Ed Harris which is outstanding.

Another news story that caught my eye yesterday, this one is actually quite funny. This ties in to a trend that I started noticing late last year. For decades women have been victim to endless commercials urging us to use products and services to keep ourselves looking young. I've noticed that there are now a bunch of commercials that specifically target men as well (most notable to me is the Just for Men hair coloring commercial). Companies have discovered an untapped market in beauty supplies for men and they're zeroing in for the kill. Women have years of experience ignoring these commercials but the men are fresh faced and naïve. It's a bit sad but quite funny as well. Yesterday did me in. Now men can lift and separate too. There's some underwear out there that does just that 'cause you know, a dropped 'package' can be a real turn-off.

And finally, this week's KFF. I love this picture because it's one of the few were Keanu looks like he's smiling genuinely.

Lots of pictures in the post this week! Keep a look out of more next week! Still looking for questions for the Photo Treasure Hunt Meme, so keep them coming!

Have a great weekend everyone!