Ground breaking research at U of G!

These are a couple "news stories" on the uoguelph home page. It astounds me that someone in the world thinks this research is important enough to post on our website but what is even more shocking is that people are researching this and some moron is funding this research.

Lefties Aren't So Different After All, Finds U of G Prof

This research is featured in today's Globe and Mail.

Contrary to popular scientific belief, left-handedness is not linked to dyslexia, poorer spatial ability, homosexuality, asthma and hyperactivity, a University of Guelph psychology professor has found.

Surprise Surprise.... ! I was previously unaware of these left handed stereotypes but I can tell you this, I know now and am on the look out.

TV Watching Linked to Increased Physical Inactivity, Study Finds

Thinking of getting your kids a new television or some DVDs for Christmas? You may want to reconsider that gift idea if you want your children to be physically active, according to research by University of Guelph and University of Toronto professors.

Ok, WHO funds this?! This is common sense/knowledge. ... idiots

T-shirt memories

I was talking to Vice last night and somehow it came up about making a t-shirt regarding us surviving the death storm in Algonquin over the summer. Here's my prototype.

I took this while driving.... a photoshop filter later I like the way it looks.

I'm going to bed, I'm exhausted.

Done classes

Holy crap, I'm sitting here in the library and have my final assignment completed and in my bag ready to hand in. This is crazy. It's going to take a while to sink in....

This stupid computer still has a wheel mouse, what is this, 1995?

Almost there!

I'm almost done. Just two more assignments to hand in before finals. I brought Chico up this weekend for the rest of the semester to keep me company. The real reason is that my mom is going to Australia and I'm fairly convinced my dad would forget about him.

Here is Kelsey holding him. Notice how he's leaning as far away as possible.. haha. He's trying to get to me, taking the picture. What a loser, so needy.


On the way back to Guelph this morning I saw a windmill blade being transported somewhere, it was HUGE. So cool.

Yes, occasionally I take pictures while driving.

Burnout

Ok, it's official, I am currently millimetres away from burning out. I counted the number of assignments I have. This semester I have 24 assignments consisting of labs and calculation assignments, they range from 3-10 pages and take way too long to do. Most of them are geology shit and you have to map stuff and make figures. On top of this I still have midterms and a real sized paper. THIS IS CRAZY.... I was going to go home tomorrow but can't now b/c these things are just too huge!

I have to plan my life by the minute to finish these beasts. IT SUCKS!

Funny videos

Windmills in the library

This week was bittersweet, the beginning started out so crappy. Tons of stuff due and not enough time to get all the assignments done. Sunday to Wednesday I spent over 12 hours in the library each day... crappy! 3 assignments got moved to next week though so the end of my week was alot better and let me do some birthday stuff.

This picture I snapped while driving by the big windmill at the Ex at the end of October. I photoshopped the background to black and white while keeping the windmill the same. It was reflecting all that blue off the sky. I thought it looked pretty cool.

Some of the best

Here's some of my favourite pictures that I've taken over the past year.






Ok, so here's the story. I know you can identify.
I was swimming in the pool on sunday night at school playing innertube waterpolo and I had to go pee really bad. Not wanting to run back to the locker room I contemplated just going in the pool. (they're full of chlorine, don't worry about it) But then, fear came over me as I recalled the legend of that magical dye that turns red when you pee. After discussing my predicament with one of my other teammates we both concluded that this dye doesn't exist. However, the fear was still in me and it was a chance I wasn't willing to take. Everyone has heard of this mythical dye yet no one has actually ever seen it. I seriously doubt it's existance but I'll let you test it first.

Orange County II

Ok, I just ate an orange and noticed the sticker on it said it was from South Africa. That's crazy! A piece of fruit traveled half way around the world and then I ate it. I wonder who picked it and what their like..... Life must be way different for them. It's almost like one of those thoughts you have when you think that You are You and that you're a person who can make your own decisions and stuff. Mind bending..

News worthy?

Ha, I just read this in one of the top stories on CBC.ca. An excerpt from the story titled

Thousands without power day after windstorm

"New Brunswick seeing light

About 40 New Brunswickers, mainly in rural areas, were still without power, said the New Brunswick Power Corporation."


How does this make the news? 40 houses, that is incredible! They'd really have to call around at that rate to find 1000 people without power.

zzzzzzzzz

Ok, I'm up at 3:30AM writing a paper critique that I got a week extension on. Why did I wait till the last minute you ask? I'm asking myself that same question. However as I sit here pondering the strengths and weakness of this study I am being serenaded by the water softner that is in my room. Beginning at 3AM it has been making a ton of noise doing whatever it does to replace the calcium in my water with sodium. No wonder I never seem to get a good night's rest, this damn thing is so loud! I'm a heavy sleeper but this is ridiculous. I usually wake up when it starts but then fall back to sleep but that sleep that I fall back into can't be as good as the normal sleep resulting in a tired state all day despite getting 9 hours of sleep. Well, I can't blame that thing tonight and nor will I be getting 9 hours of sleep.....

sweet dreams

Survival

I made it through last week, I can't believe it. I had to manage my time ridiculously well. I learned 6 weeks of environmental water chemistry in a day and a half. Now that just goes to show what I've learned in my 4 years here; how to cram! I went into the exam after practicing on 2 old assignments, a set of old notes and 3 old midterms. They were all basically the same but when I got in there he through a huge curveball and had stuff I had never seen a question on before. I don't know how I did it but I managed to get over 75 on the thing! I was devestated walking out of that room but was ecstatic today when I found out. Ontop of that exam I had 3 assignments and another midterm last week. It was crazy to say the least.

My letter commenting on the crap clothing selection at the UoG bookstore made it in the paper which was great!

On Sunday I worked the boxoffice for the M&W soccer games. It was so slack, I got paid to read a book for 4 hours. Oh, I did sell 24 tickets. That's what I'm talking about.

I got my photobook full of summer pictures printed and got it last week. The quality however left much to be desired. It looked as though someone printed it at home and pasted it in a book and charged me my first born for it. Hopefully the replacement they're sending will be of a similar quality to last year's.

Orange County

I always thought oranges were a pain in the ass. You know, you have to sit there and peel them before you can eat, your hands get all sticky and then you have to throw out the peel. So much work.. But then I discovered you can cut them up really fast, so I've been eating alot of oranges and loving it. mmmm.

O-town

Last weekend Ian and I made the trip to Ottawa to visit Ben and Charity and catch a couple Guelph Gryphons field hockey games. It was a great time in an awesome city. The weather co-operated on Saturday so we were able to walk around and check stuff out.



7 Half-pints on a stick!



This is me eating shwarma... that was a horrible idea.


The war memorial.


A lookout right behind Parliament.



Parliament at night.





The city was so nice I'm going to try to come back sometime soon! I'd seriously consider living there if it wasn't for the 8 month winters they have. Oh, and I'd want to live in 24 Sussex.

Ironic

October is breast cancer awareness month or something. Today I passed a sign that said "support breast cancer research" the only problem with that was the fact that the sign the phrase was on is owned by the local tanning bed place. You know, the place where they toast you with UV rays.... great...

Multiple dreaming layers

Last night I dreamt that I was back in a canoe and catching up on my tanning. I miss the summer and canoeing ALOT! It was much better than the night before's dream. That dream was crazy and started with me working at a shipping yard for the couple months before camp. I ended up climbing a cliff and at the top was my program counsellor from school for some reason (who's husband is a cliff ecologist). I was looking for someone so scrambled back down the cliff and found that the shipping yard was now on camp property and that it was winter. There were tunnels through the snow drifts that outdoor ed had made and they had fans in them to keep the air circulating through them. It was this point that I made my way to the tuck shop which was more like a trading post and ran into my dad. It was then thanksgiving and I was freaking out b/c I noticed that I had cut my thumb off some how. It looked sick. I couldn't remember right away how I had did it but realized that I hadn't actually cut it off but only dreamt that I had the day before while documenting a crime scene with Nanook on the side of the road. Once I realized that I hadn't actually cut my thumb off I felt alot better. I then went sledding at camp and then woke up.

All of that makes sense when I think about. Everything that showed up in that dream somehow relates to someone I saw or somewhere I went over the previous couple of days... It's weird how stuff like that sits in your subconcious.

Indian Summer 2006

Yesterday I made the trek from Fonthill to Port Sydney to take part in the summer debrief for Boys Camp deemed "Indian Summer". In the afternoon we had a meeting and at night we made a huge fire.




We all pitched in for a mammoth firecracker from Smiths called "PLANET SMACKDOWN"! We lit it on top of the blob tower entertaining the cottagers across the lake.






Lets be serious now, the firelighting was the highlight! I got to shoot the roman candle at it sending a fireball into the air and a blue ring of death across the beach.

A few thoughts

Learning from past experiences this past week I got a haircut instead of buying a hat. Gone are my golden blond summer locks however, I am now disheartened until I may be sunkissed once again. Looking at some pictures with snow in it has made me remember how much fun it can be. Maybe I'm not that sad about winter's accelerated approach this year.

I like this picture.


Look, snow on the beach.


I like this one too.


Elliott, just five more minutes... seriously

Man sized bladder

I'm feeling better now and thought of a funny story. Charity will appreciate this.

A couple weeks ago I headed north on a week long field trip for one of the courses I am taking. I slept for most of the 6 hour drive North and have concluded that the air must have been dry in the van and I breathed out most of my body's moisture content because I didn't pee for over 15 hours. Impressed? I certainly was.

Back at it!

Here I am, back at school.... how does that make you feel? Well, it makes me feel crappy to be honest. All this structure, due dates and stresses. I'm living in a house with 3 random girls which is interesting. I managed to score the basement which on the downside doesn't have any windows to the outside world but is about the same size as all 3 girls rooms combined. I've set my hammock up in it which I still have yet to take full advantage of. We don't have a long distance plan so I'm counting on other people calling me or taking of advantage of skype until December. The living room situation is hurting to the max, right now it contains one couch, one chair, and a kitchen table.... Thats it, a pretty sterile environment. Someone should really donate a tv to the room and some cable while they're at it.

Today I had a lab all afternoon which was crappy and then it started to rain. Should I expect less from Guelph? The town of eternal drizzle. Needless to say but today is bordering sucky/mediocre at best.

I was in Kingston on the weekend and snapped some pics.

Finito

I'm gone for the summer to Pioneer Camp working as a tripper. I'll be updating my summer blog instead of this one, check it out at http://pioneercamp2006.blogspot.com/ . Leave me comments already!!

Final Highway Moments

I tried to get some cool pictures on my last night shift last Thursday.... I don't really know why the vehicles don't show up at all but it does look kind of cool.











Another great sunset on the way to work, you can't really go wrong with these.

Dust Bowl and Tornado watch

Today I realized that the date on my watch has been wrong for the past two weeks and the big soccer game today between Holland and the Ivory Coast is actually tomorrow...... but it works better b/c i'll be able to watch some of it. Apparently May does have 31 days, not 30.

On my way home from work today I saw a dust devil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil) in a bare field. It must have been over 100 ft high and 30 feet across, it was really cool as I have this fascination with tornadoes and dream about them constantly. I stopped on the side of the road to watch it, then it hit some trees and disappeared. I didn't have my camera... It seems I always see cool stuff in my car when I don't have it. I'd love to chase tornadoes some day but I think I'm too scared. I think this fascination with them started when a twister when through Fonthill in '96, I still remember running down the street to get in the house before the crazy downpour began. The twister ripped through my friends properties and took down a drive in movie screen that was ironically about to play the '96 hit "Twister". I shit you not.

Summer Special, Combo #4

Last night I worked the night shift and we went out for breakfast afterwards. On the way home there was some really cool fog around and the sun was about to come up so I snapped some pics of the sunrise.

















The view from lookout point here in Fonthill was really cool. The fog was settled in the low spots of the Shorthills and you could see from Niagara Falls to St. Catharines.

During the night we cleaned a bridge in St. Catharines along the 406. It's called the Segmental b/c it's hollow and inside there are a bunch of rooms. Anyways, on the side there is always some awesome graffiti so I went back today to take a look around a snap some pictures.


This "GUTS" crew had stuff all over the place. Most of it was pretty impressive even if I couldn't tell what it said. I like the pictures the best.









If I owned a business that catered to young people I would hire some of these people to paint a kickass mural on my store. People would come to see it and they would buy lots of stuff. We could change it up every couple of months, can you say tourist attraction? Yes, sir!

Parents Memory

Ok, so I've decided my parents only had enough room to memorize one set of their kids friends. This was unforunately used on their first born leaving me to have to remind them thousands of times of who is who and where this person is from and how I know everyone I ever speak of. For example, yesterday I made reference to Wayne, you know that guy I've lived with at school for 3 years, I went to highschool with, and am a groomsman in his wedding party....? I figured by now we were past the point where I had to say his last name seeing as how I have known him so long and only know one Wayne, apparently not. If by chance I know two people by the first name all hell breaks loose.


**I'm sure by the time I have kids there will be some sort of computer thing with pictures to do this sort of thing for me **

Night Skywalker

The night was June 1st, 2006, 4am - 5pm. Taking place on the Burlington skyway, they were fixing a broken expansion joint. These are the pictures.

This one looked cooler in person. I guess most things do but whatever, I still like it.
Hamilton steel being forged as we speak and breathe in the fumes.

No traffic on the QEW? Must be the middle of the night.

Steeltown = smogtown, but a cool picture

It cleared up a bit later on in the day as this boat sat suspiciously in the harbour.... dun dun dun...

Finally figured out how to get panoramics up here. These are always cool.

This is what resulted later on the in day. This is a cool feeling to realize you're making thousands of people late, angry, frustrated. A sense of power and sense of respect for the construction workers of this world was upon me.

Hairstylers

A couple months ago I really needed a haircut but not wanting to go to some weird place to get it done I just bought a hat.

Smog, graffiti and the green mile

So I work on bridges for the most part during the spring, cleaning expansion joints and doing minor repairs to asphalt and concrete. However, a couple weeks ago we got a call to come and paint a railing in front of the Hamilton Catholic Diocese offices and some big church that was there. Apparently when the province put in the 403 way back when they agreed to maintain this fence. It was supposed to be painted in the fall but no rush.... The church there is celebrating their 150th anniversary this coming weekend and someone high up in the MTO (ministry of transportation of ontario) knows someone high up at the catholic church and this is HAS to be done by then. Anyways... we've been painting this fence for two weeks solid, it's over 800 feet long and we've nicknamed it the Green Mile. Painting sucks in general, but painting a fence like this is way worse.
This picture shows half of the Green Mile, the rest lurks around the corner to the right. It never ends.

Near by there are a couple bridges that we just found out we have to paint to. Underneath there is some cool graffiti.

This one was the best.

May 28, 2006, Hamilton Harbour. Believe it or not there is not a cloud in the sky, this is all just smog, compliments of my car, your car, dofasco and lawnmowers.

Coats and Rain

Today it rained. We finished work early which was really nice and went out for a pizza lunch and called it a day. We're painting the longest fence in the world. We've nicknamed it the green mile b/c it never ends. On the way home from Hamilton I saw a traffic jam building in front of me near Beamsville and quickly took the Ontario St. exit ( I needed gas anyway) and saw as i drove down the service road that the Toronto bound side was totally stopped. Everyone on the Niagara bound side which I had been on was stopping to look. I felt like a ge
nius as I drove by everyone stopped on the highway!

I'm selling my beloved Oilers jacket on ebay and a couple people have already bid on it. I figured this would be the best time to sell it, when people are in Oilers fever. I already got the reserve price of 30 bucks (double what I paid for it) and there still 5 and a half days left in the auction. That's a decent amount of interest if you know ebay at all. Here's the link. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8817511765&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1