Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Happy Belated Anniversary!

How appropriate.... I missed my own 5-year anniversary.
I was supposed to have a big exciting post on the 29th, but I didn't, oopsie!

In other news, the summer is officially over now; Vancouver has been cold and rainy for the last two or three days. Along with all of my school friends in Vancouver, I'm working on assignments and things to get ready for the new school year. I fell behind on my plans for productivity (no surprise there) so now I'm scrambling to get as much done as possible in the next few days.
When I start school, it's going to be intense - from today, there are only 3 weeks a few days before I head to Winnipeg for a big ol' birthday and a wedding. A major scholarship deadline happens while I'm out of town, so I have to have it submitted before I leave.

There are, however, some good things going on. I did a super fun photo-shoot the other day; it was partially just for fun, as I'll be superimposed onto the inside of a piano, but I should also get some decent headshots out of it.
Also, one of my good school friends has returned to Vancouver after a summer away.

Anyway, I can't really think of anything else to say, so toodles!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Old Yearbooks

As I mentioned earlier, when my parents came to visit, they brought everything that was mine from their house in Winnipeg - books, cds, photos, etc. I'm in the process of putting things in appropriate places and I just stumbled upon some old yearbooks...

Middle-School Michael was a horrible, horrible person! In
1995-96, I went through and defaced dozens of pictures and wrote some pretty damn mean things.

Teachers - I suppose this isn't surprising, I scratched out a bunch of faces, drew boogers coming out of noses and wrote, "I'm a monkey" beside one teacher who I can't even remember having for anything...

I never went to middle school with my sister, but some of her friends were in the grade above me. On these young ladies, I drew mustaches and boogers.

Even my own friends were victims of my douchery. At the time, I was really close with 3 guys, 2 of whom I still keep in touch with. Ironically, it's the guy I fell out of touch with that I must have been with when I was writing/drawing these things because his yearbook picture simply says, "I'm cool". One of the guys had long hair and we always m
ocked him for it, as well as other things - I lengthened his hair and blacked out some teeth on his picture. Finally, I feel the worst about what I wrote next to one of my best and oldest friends - "I suck at the trumpet". We and the friend I was writing this with all played in the trumpet section together and were always competitive. I know I didn't really mean it (he was really a very good trumpeter), but I do feel bad for writing it, so I'm sorry Jon!

I also feel bad for making fun of the fats and the gays.... Karma - that's why I got fat! haha
I guess I had gaydar back then - I drew a women's haircut and the words 'tee hee hee' around one student who was particularly effeminate and has since then come out. I also hate that I so stereotypically made fun of the fat kids. I was so insensitive and I apologize to everyone for everything!

Anyway, here's an old picture of me from the '95-'96 school year. I would have been in grade 7 and I was about 12 years old.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Hiking and Diabetes

Yesterday, I went on my fourth hike since moving to Vancouver.
Armed with juice, snacks of varying GI values, lifesavers, and 60% of my normal basal dose, it was a well-behaved diabetes day. My sugars were higher upon waking (11.3), so I corrected and pre-dosed for my breakfast, which I ate nearly an hour later. Sugars were stable for the drive out and I started the hike at a comfy post-meal-pre-exercise level (9.0).
After half an hour, I was out of breath and out of shape, haha. Sugars were dropping and I was juicing. After this bit, a pack of lifesavers and a few handfuls of trail mixed saw me through the next 2 and a bit hours to top of the hike with sugars staying in a very happy place (4.8-6.5).

The above picture was taken from the Elfin Lakes. Calling it the 'top of the hike' is a little misleading, it's the end point, but not the top. You can actually call this hike 'uphill both ways'. The first half was about 65-35 (uphill-downhill), and the opposite when you turn back around.

I made my classic hiking mistake... "Surely my sugars won't spike from lunch because they've been evenly dropping while hiking...", but that's stupid. Lunch happens while you've stopped moving so your sugars sure do rise with the food!
[I know in normal life, I should alway dose at least 15-20 minutes before a meal, but I rarely actually do... On this hike, the difference between dosing before eating and after the sandwich would have made a huge difference.]

Starting on our way back, my sugars were 13.1, but didn't stay there long due to some corrections I planned on counteracting later. It wasn't even half an hour before I was under 10, at which point I had a granola bar and some lifesavers which kept me stable for the rest of the up. The last half of the hike was stable and good!
When we got to the car at the end, we celebrated with Apple Strudel, and then another when I realized my sugars weren't moving upward at all. It's a good thing I got my friend to drive home because I really needed those 70 carbs of strudel... 2 hours later, my sugars were still stable at 7.3!

The evening sucked - I didn't drink enough water so I was suffering from heat exhaustion. It baffled me because I didn't sweat anywhere near as much as I usually do on hikes, and I drank a good 2 litres of water. PLUS, there was no sun, whatsoever... maybe 15 minutes of sun the entire day. It was cloudy the whole time... but now that I think about it, my transition lenses were dark the whole time, meaning that there were some UV rays sneaking through! Also, I passed out early on, before I had taken my nightly Lantus... I woke up at 4am feeling not so hot, but my sugars were only at 11.4.
I am feeling great today, a little stiff, but it's all good!

Oh ya, the reason I was focusing on diabetes today was because my friend (and fellow hiker) Jim was asking about diabetes management things as they related to hiking and exercise. I answered his questions to the best of my ability, but there really aren't enough answers. Sometimes my sugars go up after exercise (like at lunch time), other times, they go down after exercise (back at the car) and I haven't been able to identify the pattern conclusively.
I've been more active this year than I have in years, and I'm getting better at managing diabetes in relation to it. The first hike and the first few Kung Fu classes were disasters where diabetes really got in the way. I've improved in as much as diabetes causes mild to moderate hiccups, and I look forward to the days that I do things regularly enough that diabetes is a natural, non-influential part of my exercising!

Monday, August 16, 2010

What else is new...

As I predicted, there was a problem today. While I am in no way surprised, I am very disappointed.

Telus's online system has been in shambles for the last month. I suppose it IS too much for me to expect that the company that provides my cellphone and internet service be able to maintain a functioning website and customer database...

Last night, I was naive and let myself get excited. I had trouble falling asleep - partially because of the excitement, but also the heat... When I woke up, it was like a nine year old's Christmas morning - ripe with anticipation. Sadly, today was the day that Telus told me that Santa was fake!

I was assured that tomorrow will be the day, but the excitement is gone.

For those of you who are wondering, I am fully aware of my vanity, but I'm embracing it!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Well, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't have a thousand comments of congratulations on my thousandth post, but I'll survive...
BUT, just in case you feel badly about missing the opportunity, there's another milestone coming up in two weeks - my 5-year blogging anniversary! I'll probably be a lot more reminiscent for that post than I was for my thousandth, but you never know!

Anyway, I should know better than to get excited, or say anything, but tomorrow is going to be the day that I am finally finished with my Blackberry! I've decided to get the HTC Desire Android smartphone. I've double checked with two separate Telus agents that I will have no problems getting this phone tomorrow and there is one being held for me at the store. I don't think there is anything else I could possibly do to ensure this goes smoothly, but it's Telus - I'm sure there will be some hassle!

"But I thought you had decided on the iPhone, Michael..."

Good memory - I had come to that decision before the fiasco, but I've been forced to wait.
During the time, I've had time to re-evaluate my smartphone needs.

Spite
While I initially placed all the blame on Telus, and though I have in no way diminished my disappointment, I see that Apple is also to blame, dropping the ball a few times on the iPhone 4 issue. While the reception thing has been blown way out of proportion, it still shows that they released it before it was really ready. Also, they short-supplied the Canadian market to create more excitement and desire- it worked on me at first, but since I had to wait, I see the douchery for what it really is.

New Competition
Before the whole fiasco started, there really wasn't any competition available through Telus. The only decent Android phone I was considering was the Motorola Milestone. It was good on paper, but it as big and bulky and had a sliding keyboard that wasn't really any use to me and it was just ugly - too industrial for my tastes. During the waiting period, since July 30th, Telus released the HTC Desire and because I couldn't get the iPhone, I looked into it. The specs looked good and after extensively reading the reviews, it seems that it is in direct competition with the iPhone 4. The consensus out there seems to be that they are both phenomenal smartphones and it comes down to a matter of preference.

The Idea of Android
I certainly wouldn't call myself anti-Apple - I love my mac, but I've always had reservations about the iPhone. Last year, when I was first looking at smartphones, I was naive and didn't research enough. I didn't think the price difference between the iPhone and the Blackberry Storm was worth it (boy, was I wrong). On a deeper level, there was something in me wanting to avoid the iPhone. Maybe it was the idea that all the cool people had them (I still hate conformity), or maybe I was resisting the big-box entity.
When I first read about Android phones a year and a half ago, the idea excited me - an open source platform across multiple companies. Mumbly mumbly, I'm happy to be supporting Android and the open-source ideals!

Impatience
I suppose that since I've waited so long to change my phone as it is, I shouldn't mind waiting another week to get the iPhone 4, but I just don't want to wait anymore. This isn't a serious deciding factor, but it does have its place in my mind.
In case that email I sent them didn't make it clear, I REALLY don't like being told that I can't buy something when I have the product in front of me and the money in hand. As a result, Apple has lost my business, and I will be buying a phone that will cost 80$ less, so SUCK THAT TELUS!
Actually, that's enough reason right there - denying both offending companies the profit that they could have had AND saving myself money - I think that's a good thing all around!

Ok, I'm done blabbing for tonight. Hopefully, I will have exciting news tomorow.
Also, I'm meeting with some collaborators for an exciting video project that we have in the works!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010


Guess what today is.....




That's right, it's my one-thousandth post!



I've always dreamed of the day that my number of posts would catch up to my number of followers, but it appears I've been working in the wrong direction since post number... 2. Anyway, I owe a big thank you to all of my loyal readers and for you, I have a special treat - videos of my latest, and possibly most entertaining compositions to date!

I'll give you some background so that you're not completely confused and/or frightened. One of my best friends in Vancouver, who recently moved away, had a roommate who was very open and expressive when it came to her... lady times. Quite a while back, we got it in our heads to write some inspiring songs to help her deal with it. Margy wrote six inspiring poems in a fit of poetic inspiration one night; I was only able to set one of them to poetry until very recently. In the week before Margy was to leave, we knew we needed to have the pieces performed. Margy's boyfriend set one poem to music the day before the concert, and in the hour before our special guest was to arrive, Margy and I each set one poem to music! With only a few minutes of rehearsal, the performance came together seamlessly and here are the videos to prove it!

[Videos removed due to privacy concerns]

As you can tell, we had a lot of fun writing and performing these pieces. The audience, consisting of our special guest and my parents, were very amused.

In other news, my parents have been visiting me for the last week and I have to say that they've been such great sports. For the first few days, there were 5 people living in a 2-bedroom apartment. They put up with this ridiculous, if not mildly offensive, performance AND they came to a kung fu class at the beach, worked really hard, and had a lot of fun! In conclusion, my parents rock!

All in all, things are fantastic. I know I have had my doubts over the years, but I have no intention of stopping my blog! I'll always strive to improve and keep it exciting for you, my loyal readers. In case you don't believe me, here's some balloons as proof!




Thursday, August 05, 2010

Last of the Triple Digits

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!
You are currently reading my 999'th blog post.

I'd write about all my accomplishments that have seen me through the last 999 entries, but I just don't want to. Milestones are important and exciting, but I'm not all that excited about this one.
The next one, however...

Post #1000 is going to be fantastic, a celebration like the world has never seen! Exclamation marks galore!!!

Times are good here in Vancouver. My parents are visiting from Winnipeg, so I am filled with familial joy. The fact that I am sleeping on the couch is less than ideal, but I'll suck it up for a week. We currently have 5 people staying in out little 2-bedroom apartment, so I am looking forward to having the place completely to myself next week.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy family time, and spending time with my friend before she leaves Vancouver forever...
aww, now I don't want to end on a sad note, so here's some happy news:

Along with my parents, came my music library! I'm so happy to have my favourites at my fingertips again. This also means that I get to explore my options for additional shelving of the book variety.

Anyway, goodnight and I will see you next in the land of 4-digit numbers!