mike the mountain

What an awesome year.  Even though by some measures it wasn’t quite the year I had hoped for, there’s never a bad time in the world of Mike.

One unfortunate thing that I allowed to affect almost everything in ’08 was my shoulder injury.  In February I had what seemed like a very minor fall while snowboarding that ended up dislocating my shoulder and tearing my rotator cuff.  I have NEVER had any kind of injury take so long to fully heal!  I’m still not at 100%.  The toll this took on my usual fun and games was catastrophic: couldn’t go snowboarding for the rest of the winter, couldn’t golf at all during the summer, had to drop out of a marathon training program (still managed to run a 1/2 marathon), couldn’t wear a backpack with any weight so no overnight hiking, couldn’t do any of the normal physical activities that I usually enjoy (weightlifting, rollerblading, squash, swimming, etc.) and, as important, that keep me in any kind of healthy condition.  End result is me being in the absolute worst shape of my life: fat, weak, and pretty dang pathetic.

Enough!  That’s the other thing I let that injury do for me all year: gave me an excuse to be a whiny lazy bitch, eat badly, not do the exercise I could do, etc.  Starting TODAY, I’m back to eating well and working my a$$ off.

One goal I thoroughly enjoyed surpassing was writing at least one blog post a week.  I managed to put up 62 posts in 2008, some of which actually involved original thought!

The big highlight vacation was a roadtrip through BC.  Chrystal had never seen BC outside of Vancouver and our West Coast Trail hiking trip, so I resolved to show her as much of the rest of this incredible slice of paradise as I could.  We did a whirlwind tour of the southern interior, wine country, up the Sunshine Coast, across the island, a week (SUR-fing) in Tofino, then up through the central-BC backroads to Jasper. Tenting the whole way, enjoying some incredible local produce, grilling fresh fish over a campfire, drinking amazing wine every night… awesome.  A trip every Canadian needs to do at least once in their life.

I got all fired up about the proposed copyright legislation some twisted, ignorant, bought-and-paid-for, miserable excuse for a public servant tried to force down our throats and wallets.  Not that I have an opinion about it or anything…

In May I moved this humble little blog from Blogger to my own WordPress site.  Also started Twittering, because I really don’t have enough ways to waste time online.

Dreamgirl (who I think should start her own blog) had a huge year as well: running her first marathon in Edmonton at the end of the summer, on one of the hottest days of the year!  Also, to the joy of us both, she took a part time job at Mountain Equipment Co-Op.  Just for the extra money, of course.  Nothing to do with the staff discount, amazing trips, cool people, or any of that stuff.  Really.

A big personal achievement in the work world was finally building and launching our new website and blog.  I’m pretty dang proud of this, and I hope you will swing by every once in a while and let me know how I’m doing!

So I get a phone call last night. Asking for Chrystal, but happy to talk to me. Probably should have been my first warning.

So this guy (Nick from Georgia!) tells me “congratulations!!”  Apparently Chrystal ‘won’ a fantastic vacation package to Orlando.  Sponsored by Universal Studios; 7 days at a resort near all the attractions, full-access passes, rental car with unlimited mileage, then 4 more days on Daytona Beach. Chrystal and I and two more people at no extra cost! Of course I’m doubtful, but Nick starts rattling off all kinds of info: Chrystal’s email, birthday, home address. Hm. Not asking me for anything, just giving me a bunch of info, and telling me the package is in the mail, just make sure to send him a postcard!

Cost?

Oh there’s no charge for the accommodations or car, but there is a “registration fee” of $199 per person. Not that unreasonable, I guess. Nick keeps talking about sending us the info package, doesn’t ask me for anything, I’m starting to think this might be legit, I’m actually getting a little excited about everything… then I get transferred to the “shipping department”.

Now I’m talking to “Tony”.  Robo-caller extraordinaire.  He starts fast-talking about how they’re a very upstanding respectable company and I have nothing to worry about and they work with Universal Studios and I’ve heard of Universal Studios and if they work with Universal Studios then they must be totally legitimate and he’s confirmed that Chrystal has a Visa and it’s a 16-digit number and it starts with a 4 and if I could just read the rest of the number…

Woah. Wait. Stop. Excuse me?

“Yes I see Chrystal has a valid Visa card, it’s a 16 digit number starting with a 4.”

(At this point you’re probably thinking the same thing I am: “What the heck was in that Jamaican meat patty I just ate? Also, isn’t every Visa number 16 digits starting with a 4?”)

Also also, Chrystal doesn’t have a Visa. Red flag on the play, this one’s done. But my curiosity’s been peaked, so I’m going to drag this out a bit longer.

I tell “Tony” that I’m not comfortable giving out my girlfriend’s credit card number over the phone, is there some way they could send the info package and I’ll call back?

“We’re a perfectly legitimate company sponsored by blah blah blah… I see Chrystal has a Mastercard 16 digits starting with a 5…”

I tell him again that I’m not giving out her credit card number, do they have a phone number that I could call them back? Nope, I can’t call back without a confirmation number but they can’t give me a confirmation number until they have the credit card number because blah blah blah and what’s her Mastercard number 16 digits starting with a 5…?

At this point he’s repeated the same word-for-word script to me at least 3 times, even using some of the exact phrases that my old buddy “Nick” fed me. I’m tired of this guy now so I ask him for the name of his company. “We work with Universal Studios…” Shaddup. This is obviously a scam, what’s the name of YOUR company??

He finally mumbles out “E Tour and Travel” before I hang up, disappointed but at least relatively confident that I made the right choice here. Chrystal might have been a teensy bit upset if she came home and found out I gave her credit card info to someone over the phone.

A quick Google shows me that E Tour and Travel is some kind of super-aggressive somewhat shady looking outfit that sells timeshares (that part was never mentioned to me). Their marketing tactics are at best borderline illegal, so even if this offer (not a “prize”) was completely legit, I’m still pretty glad to not have fallen for it. To be fair, it looks like even though there’s been a ton of complaints against them, they have resolved or “made every effort to resolve” nearly all of them (according to the BBB).

I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that **NO** reputable business is going to call you at night and ask for your credit card number…

After seeing the results of my Dada album cover yesterday, Dreamgirl decided she wanted her own band.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present the world premiere of Xel-Há…

Now, judging purely by the look of the albums, what kind of music do you think our bands play? And even more importantly, who opens for who?

… doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it!

Anyway, I’m on a beach, and I’m just not that hardcore to break out the laptop when there’s sand and water to play in.

Vacation. Girlfriend’s parent’s 2-minutes-from-the-beach cottage. AKA: better things to do.

Of course, I have managed to watch half of the first season of Heroes (gimme a break, I missed the first couple episodes and haven’t had a chance to catch up yet!), start and finish Cory Doctorow’s novel “Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town”, and tonight we’re going to catch a double bill of 300 and Transformers at the local drive-in!!

You can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the geek… I mean, you can take the geek out of the boy… no, I mean you can’t take… whatever. I’m a geek. Rawk.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love you Dreamgirl

So I turned 11101 this month… actually on the day we arrived in the City of Champions. Knowing that I was going to be on the road for Mike Day, that amazing girlfriend of mine actually packed a whole bunch of amazing and thoughtful presents (including Lord of the Freakin’ Rings Special Extended Edition Trilogy!!). So even though Mike Day started with me and Dreamgirl in a hotel room in Regina, -47 degrees Celsius out, and 8 hours of snow-covered highways ahead of us, it was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.

Thanks babe.

Oh yeah, not only that, but with all the rush around our packing up and leaving Ontario in such short notice, I was getting a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to say goodbye to my Toronto buddies (Hey JP, Lisa, Bill, Lewis, Andy, Heather, Hercules, Ian, Sean, Steve, Brenda… anyone else I forgot about). So what does my little honey do? Suggest we go out for a bite of dinner at one of my favourite restaurants in Waterloo, and there’s a bunch of my best friends sitting around a table with balloons, pirate hats, and noisemakers! A full on, no kidding, good ol’ fashioned surprise birthday/going-away party! I’ve never had anyone do that for me before, and I’ve never been so totally caught by surprise in my life.

Thanks again babe.

What a woman!

So because of various firewall restrictions at work, the only chat protocol I’ve found that I can use is Skype. MSN, Google, AIM, ICQ… all of them are blocked, but Skype goes through. Must use a different port or something, I don’t ask why I’m just glad I have a way to stay in contact. And it’s nice to use it to record phone calls on occasion!

Dreamgirl started her new job this week, and so I feel she needs a new Skype icon. Here’s a bunch I cropped out for her from a few recent vacations… I probably could have just sent them to her so she could choose herself, but how can I deprive the world of such beauty??

Oh, just for the record, here’s my icon:

Ed. – hmph. She made me take out a few pics… Oh well, there’s still enough hotness to go around!