“Tom Brokaw explains the relationship between Canada and The United States, in a pre-recorded short film that aired on NBC, prior to the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on Feb. 12th, 2010.”

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Really I’m amazed I finished the series.

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You see, it’s such a different atmosphere for bloggers in today’s culture. Back when I was posting a lot, I didn’t think anyone was really reading what I wrote about, no one really cared. My family, both immediate and extended, had no idea about my online life, and I was pretty free to say and do what I thought. That’s completely changed now. My “little” cousins have this address, so do my aunts, my mother and my father. Also Gary’s friends and family know about me here as well and even people that I work with browse by now and then. These eyes have effectively silenced me for quite a while. I’m constantly wondering what I should write about and the stuff that makes it through my filter was…well boring. And if it’s boring to me I’m going to assume most people online would not care to read it.

So, I’m not sure what to do with my space here. I will always keep it, and I think over time I’ll be using it regularly again. I just need to make it a habit once more. I want to tie my website in with my love for photography and web site development, I’m just not sure how to do it quite yet. To help get over this writer’s block I have, I’ve started using twitter. Its quick 140 character limit has started to get the juices flowing again. For that I’m grateful.

I appreciate the people that have followed me over the years. I really hope that this year I can break this block and figure out what I want my online life to become here on this site. I’m sure no matter what it’s going to be, it’ll be something that I’m passionate about and I hope the ride is a fun one.

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If you know me at all you know that I love Halloween.   Even before I met Gary, Halloween was always a huge deal for my sisters and I.  Every year we would have to think of a costume to outdo the one we had last year. I’ve been everything from a gyspsy, to a witch, a doll, a faery, a Fraggle inspired alien, and…well you get the idea.

When I met Gary and dazzled him with stories of my haunted house in Hamilton, I think he fell in love with me a little bit that night when he discovered I loved Halloween almost as much as him.  As you can suspect once Gary and I started dating and later became engaged, surrounding ourselves with all things Halloween is no longer a yearly delight.  We surround ourselves with the macabre all year long.  It has infused every part of our home from art, to bedding, knick knacks, toys, tattoos, you name it and we have it.

Despite our mutual love for Halloween, we’ve never really been a couple costume in the past years that we have attended the Rue Morgue Halloween Parties.  Instead we both kind of just do our own thing.  Except for this past Halloween.  This was the first year we dressed up as a couple and went as demons.  I think the costumes turned out quite well.  Ok I’ll admit it, I think we look awesome!

Now I know I’ve been kind of neglecting the site in the last year and half.  Photos are no longer being posted, hell posts aren’t even being posted so this is me, trying to work at changing that habit.  So, for your enjoyment I’ve uploaded my photos from Rue Morgue’s Halloween Party: The Curse of the Pharoahs.

Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to be next year…

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“Please keeps you hands inside the moment at all times”

http://now.sprint.com/widget/

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I just finished watching his acceptance speech, and I’m not ashamed to say that I had tears in my eyes.  This is just the beginning of the change that the US has needed.  I only hope that the pride and belief that Obama has filled the nation’s heart with will sustain it through the really tough times ahead.

I also have to say that I was also happily surprised to see that Colorado voted Democratic.  I never thought it would and it just shows me that perceptions and people can change and make a difference.

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Hell it could be making millions or I could be in the poor house but I just keep hoping that when it comes time for me to retire everything will be OK.  Such a stupid outlook, I know, but well, I’m being honest here.

I think a huge reason for this is that for most of my adult life I’ve never had extra money that needed to be tracked.  I was often living paycheque to paycheque.  Now, however, Gary and I are both doing pretty well and so we’ve started to really think about all the grown up financial things we should be doing.

Back in January I started working with a financial planner to try and help me get a handle on things.  Things were going well and then Gary and I got engaged and now the financial planner wants to know about Gary’s finances as well.  Well that threw me into a panic because I know Gary is just as bad as I am about keeping track of his money.  Also we kept our finances completely separate.

It’s not a sore spot with us, but he did his thing, I did my thing and it was good.  No stress, no worries and we just split everything 50/50.  I couldn’t even tell you how much he takes home a month.

So I went through this budget that he sent me and I completely guessed on where money went each month.  The planner just got back to me and of course there is huge chunk missing.  It’s not in the monthly expenses, it’s not in savings, it’s just…gone.  Probably spent on shoes, dinners, going out, gifts…well life.

Now the planner wants to meet with me and go over this budget in detail to try and find the money.  I feel like screaming at him that I don’t know!  I don’t know how Gary spends his money, or how much he spends.  Hell I can hardly remember how I’ve spent my own money.  The planner keeps asking me questions that I don’t know how to answer and of course I feel like an utter failure as an adult.  I should be able to handle this stuff.  It’s ridiculous!

Knowing that Gary would hate to take this on, I’ve decided to take charge of our finances.  I’m going to purchase a copy of Quicken and start putting in all the receipts and known finances I currently have for the year.  I don’t expect huge results this year but next year I’m going to be all over this sucker. I figure it takes three months to start a habit so if we start now by the new year we’ll be used to keeping track of everything and it’ll become a daily/weekly/monthly ritual.

I really think that this type of basic financial accounting should be taught in high schools.  I never learned this as a teenager and really struggled with it as a young adult.

I’ll post an update a bit later to let you know how I do with this new resolution.  I might have succeeded and become budget queen extraordinaire or I might just remain an utter failure in this department.

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Do you see the resemblance?  Replace Victoria’s tweed dress with some PVC and I think Charlize Theron might have had a run for her money for her role as Aeon Flux.  That is if Victoria could act of course.

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A lot has changed in the last 9 months.  No, I haven’t popped out a kid, but Gary and I did get engaged in April, right before a trip to New York City.  We’ve set the date for September 19, 2009.  I may or may not share my horror stories experiences of the wedding planning.  I haven’t quite decided on that one yet since I seem to be missing the girly wedding gene.

A new website means a new look and feel and I’ve decided to go with a 1940’s pulp novel aesthetic.  I’m really digging the new look, it’s a lot more graphical then anything I’ve done in the past.  You can really see how Gary has influenced me.

I have some big ideas for this site, many of which include more of a slant towards the geeky but we’ll have to see.  I always say shit like that and then it never happens.  Now that the site is live, I have a reason to start going through a years worth of photos and start posting those suckers online.  I love the layout of my new Photo Gallery so you should check it out.

If you’ve followed me from Digital Masquerade or LiveJournal, I’d like to thank you for your patience.  Hopefully another nine months of silence is not in the cards for the future.

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London is calling
A few weekends ago we headed down to London to celebrate Gary’s mom’s birthday.  I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned this before, but I seriously lucked out on the whole “in-laws” front.  I absolutely adore Gary’s family and love hanging out with them.  I always feel comfortable and loved when I’m there and if it wasn’t for the two hour drive I’m sure we would see them much more often.

Rollerderby
Gary and I caught the Rollerderby championship game between The Gore-Gore Rollergirls and the Chicks Ahoy!  It was a fabulous match and Ashlea from the Gore-Gore Girls has been bugging me all season to join her team.  Hell, my plus-sized-tall body could easily take out some of these 100lb gals.    I’ve been avoiding it since I don’t really have a lot of spare time and I’m just not up to dedicating three days a week for practices.  After seeing how much fun they had at the game though, I’ve been seriously considering it.  More than likely I’ll just show up to give my support.

Floor Hockey
This is my fourth season playing floor hockey with our work team.  I’m not sure if you remember but when we first started we were completely hopeless.  This season, however, we’ve already clinched first place going into the playoffs.  The first playoff game is tonight and luckily my knee is healed enough that I can play.  A few weeks ago a guy on the team we were playing got a bit upset that the game was incredibly close and decided that hooking my feet with his hockey stick and pushing me was a fabulous idea.

CanUX 2007 in Banff
I also just came back from the CanUX 2007 conference in Banff that went from Nov 24 – Nov 27.  I went with a girl from work and we had a fabulous time.  It started off with a Design Slam on Sunday night that was challenging and a lot of fun.  The speakers on Monday were OK, but on Tuesday they really shined.  We had some great conversations and discovered that UX is huge in Vancouver.  We swapped ideas and got to spend some time in the mountains with a quick drive up to Lake Louise.  I have a bunch of pictures that I need to process but I’ll post the good ones when I’m done.

In between all of these little things, I’ve been working on teaching myself how to use ZenCart to help out Sew Scary, starting to get my feet wet in learning Silverlight for work and also putting Ghoulish Gary  into a CMS so it’s easier for him to update it.

Another thing that’s been holding me back from adding any new content, especially pictures, is that I’m moving my site…again.  I’ll have a shorter domain name and a whole new look.  Something has gone seriously wrong with this current installation causing it to take forever to load anything.  I have a feeling it’s the gallery but rather than troubleshoot it I plan on starting from scratch on my new baby.

I have some vacation time coming up in a couple of weeks that will see Gary and I in Florida for four days, flying back home for a wedding, then Christmas visiting is upon us.  I would say that I’ll try to update but really we both know that will likely not happen

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