I’ve picked a pretty theme and then screwed around with a bit to make it even prettier.  Why don’t you head on over there and let me know what you think?

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, that’s some good ice.  I swear I was skating twice as fast as I normally do, with the beautiful ice surface and the huge stadium seating all around, not to mention our team names up on the big clock hanging up over centre ice, just knowing that I’m skating on the same rink where Olympians will be skating in a little more than a year.  So. Cool.

So, yeah, I figure since I’m swamped with my regular job plus teaching two courses, why not add a second hockey team to this semester’s to-do list?

Also, playing at UBC again made me think of the sign that used to hang in one of the dressing rooms:

I wonder whatever happened to that sign.

I’ve seen a few pictures and have to say that he’s pretty damn cute.  Also, he looks just like me when I was born¹ . Which totally makes biological sense. I mean, I’m his Aunt Beth², after all.

On the left, Teddy, in a photo I stole off Dave’s blog. On the right, me, a mere 32 years, 11 days ago.
¹Yes, I realize the arrogance of that statement. I have a category of rampant narcissism for a reason, you know!
²where “Aunt” = honorary aunt as we are in no way genetically related.

Seriously.

My watch has been coming apart for quite some time now, but it’s finally come to the point that the main part of my watch has fallen completely out and I have no idea where it is.  I could have lost it anywhere, really.  I think I will use the birthday money that my sister sent me to buy a new one. Maybe I’ll even get one of those fancy ones which I can use to control Marla.

I do know one thing for sure: my friend Alicia, with whom I go running, will be glad to see me get a new watch because my old one, with the strap all unattached like that, kept shutting the timer off when we were runing as the loose plastic of the strap would hit the timer’s off button. So when my watch was supposed to beep so that we’d know that we had done our 10 minutes of running and could take our 1 minute walk break, it just wouldn’t beep. And then we’d have a totally screwed up run schedule. So, yeah, a new watch is definitely in order.  Also in order, emailing Alicia to set up a running date, which we haven’t done since before the holidays… I think we only have a 100 days left to train for our half marathon. Eep!

Just listened to President Obama’s inaugural address. I didn’t get to watch it live because the class I’m teaching is from 8:00-9:30 a.m¹.  Pacific Time. It only occurred to me very early this morning that when they said the inauguration was at 11:30 a.m., they didn’t mean Pacific Time². And that I’d still be teaching at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, i.e., 8:30 a.m. Pacific, a.k.a., way too freaking early to be teaching.

I wished my class “Happy Obama Inauguration Day!” at the start of class and right after class, I came to my office and watched the video of Obama taking the oath (so eager that he jumped in while the Chief Justice was still talking, which I thought was so cute). And then I watched his speech while toasting him with a diet Coke³.  Because I wasn’t invited to an inauguration oatmeal party, which would be more appropriate, I admit, for the ungodly hour of 9:30 in the a.m, than a can of diet Coke. (Did I mention I have to be on campus, ready to teach at 8 a.m. and that I now live on caffeine even more than I used to?)

¹Who schedules class at 8 a.m. anyway? That’s just cruel.
²Maybe I have a case of eastern alienation?
³Because it’s really difficult to find diet Pepsi on campus.

Image credit at Obamicon.me

Café Scientifique is a public science initiative that gets scientists together with the general public to talk, in layperson’s terms, about science.   I think the Wikipedia entry on Café Scientifique puts it nicely when they say that Café Scientifique:

“aims to demystify scientific research for the general public and empower non-scientists to more comfortably and accurately assess science and technology issues, particularly those that impact on social policy making”

There are a number of different groups running Café Scientifique events in a number of cities. Our particular series of Café Sci events is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and my particular event in that series is called “Addictions: Nature Meets Nurture.”  We have a panel of four researchers who study different aspects of addictions and each of them will present a brief (like, four minute long) introduction to their area of addictions research – and the rest of the event will involve questions, answers, comments and discussion among the audience and the panel members.  It is meant to be an informal event and one that will generate a lot of discussion about this complex topic.

Event Details:

Understanding Addictions: Nature Meets Nurture

February 4, 2009
7 – 9 p.m.
Café Du Soleil
1393 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC (close to Grandview Park)

Note: the event is at Café Du Soleil, not Café Deux Soleils (which is also on Commercial Drive).  Here’s a map.

Addiction is a complex problem that cannot fully be understood from any single perspective. Join us as we try to find common ground to deepen our understanding of the problems of addiction and strategies to address them .

Food and beverages will be provided.

Panelists:

Moderator:

Dr. Lorraine Greaves
Executive Director
BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health (BCCEWH)

This Café Scientifique event is part of the series Sex, Drugs and the Public: Men, Women & Addiction coordinated by the BCCEWH. This Café is offered in partnership with the Integrated Mentor Program in Addictions Research Training (IMPART)

RSVP to:  bccewh@cw.bc.ca

• For more information, please look under “Events” at www.bccewh.bc.ca
• To check out our Facebook event listing, go here.

If you plan on attending, be sure to RSVP to the email address above and let me know in the comments!

Image Attributions

• B&W Syringe: http://flickr.com/photos/spyndle/535374748/in/photostream Creative Commons License
• “Brain scan” image is reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons license. Photo by killermonkeys, originally posted on Flickr.com at http://flickr.com/photos/killermonkeys/304439098/
• “Woman drinking wine” is reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons license. Photo by Squeakymarmot, originally posted on Flickr.com at http://flickr.com/photos/sharman/26541887/
• Lines of cocaine” is reproduced under a royalty-free license from Stock.Xchange. Photo by Jan Roger Johannesen, originally posted at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/489547/
• Images was created from photos used under Creative Commons or royalty-free licenses and with permission of the copyright holders

In fact, I’m all set up to make the shift.  I’ve got a domain (which I’ve actually had for a while), I have a server, and WordPress.org has been installed (thanks to Kalev, who rocks).  I’m only lacking one magical ingredient: time.  This semester is insanely, insanely busy.  In addition to my day job, I’m teaching two new courses: the UBC one and one at SFU¹ and I’m playing on two hockey teams.  Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be training for a half marathon. So I won’t be making the shift until I get a few minutes to breath².

In the meantime, I need all you techies to answer this question: What are your favourite WordPress plugins?

Kalev has suggested this one, which, among other things, allows commenters to preview their comments before posting them.  What other ones should I get?  You know, for when I stop being insanely busy and get a chance to make the jump.

And speaking of being insanely busy, I’ve decided to prorogue my BC Premiers series until after the end of the semester.  Writing the BC Premier series postings, which I usually do on Sundays, takes up a fair bit of time since I know pretty much nothing about BC Premiers.  Unlike my usually postings where I just blather about whatever is spinning around in my brain, I actually have to read stuff.  And I know that I just don’t have time to do that until the semester is over.  So I’ve asked the Governor General of my blog³ for a prorogation of the BC Premier series and she has graciously agreed to allow it. Expect the series to start back up in late April, at which time I’ll present a budget.

¹Which, mercifully, is online (so I don’t have to go up the mountain) and has a TA (who does tonnes o’ work and also rocks)
²Perhaps over reading break?
³As it turns out, I’m the GG of my own blog. What a lucky coincidence!

1. Vote for Terrace!

CBC is letting you vote for Hockeyville 2009.  The winning community gets $100,000 to upgrade their local arena, plus an NHL pre-season game hosted in their arena, with a CBC Hockey Night in Canada broadcast from their community.

One of the top 10 communities in this year’s contest is Terrace, BC.  Remember my former roommate, Danielle?  She’s from Terrace (a.k.a. a Terracite) . She thinks you should vote for Terrace.  I think you should vote for Terrace too.

Go here to vote to Terrace.

2. Vote For Your Favourite Restaurants!

The Georgia Strait is holding the vote for its annual Golden Plates award.  Go here to vote for your favourite Vancouver restaurants.

3. Vote for Saddlebacking!

Or, more accurately, vote for a definition of saddleback.”

Dan Savage needs your help.  He’s looking to come up with a definition for the word “Saddleback” and he’s got seven options for you to choose from. Read here to learn more.  Then email him to vote (as outlined in his article).  I, like Dan, recommendation definition number 5.   It’s so very appropriate!

¹The possibility of another federal election being called once Parliament resumes later this month, of course, still looms.

43. take Tod to a Vancouver Canucks game

Last night I took Tod to his first ever Vancouver Canucks game.  Shocking, I know.  He has lived¹ his whole life in BC, most of it in and around Vancouver, without ever having gone to a Canucks game.  Mercifully, this has now been rectified.

You’ll note, however, that I didn’t specify on my list that I would take him to a good hockey game.  You know, like a game in which we wouldn’t have to give our goalie the hook at 3.5 minutes into the game because he had already been scored on TWICE!  Sanford came into replace LaBarbera and soon was inexplicably behind the net with Gionta (a Devils player) putting the puck into the net².  Combine those with the fact that the Canucks let the Devils win every battle for the puck and let the Devils skate around them as if they were a bunch of pylons and it was so bad that the whole stadium booed the Canucks off the ice at the end of the first period!  A little kid a few rows back was heard asking, quite loudly, “Why do they suck so much?”

Thankfully, the ‘nucks came out much better in the second and third periods.  They managed to make a game of it and there was some entertaining hockey to be watched.  Surprisingly, though, there wasn’t a single fight.  I think I’ll have to accomplish #44 on my 101 list (take Tod to a Vancouver Giants game) to see the fighting action. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get to see another full team brawl!

In somewhat related news, when I was telling a friend of mine at work that I’d been at the game last night and mentioned that the Canucks were playing the New Jersey Devils, my friend said, “Oh really? I met a bunch of NFL players from New Jersey on Sunday.”  She meant NHL (but that’s an indication of just how much she’s interested in pro sports) and after a quick look at the Devils’ website, we discovered that she was partying with Dainius Zubrus and Zach Parise that night.  Parise, as it happens, is on my hockey hotties list and it looks like Zubrus needs to be added to my roster!

¹Although whether one can say they’ve truly lived without having been to see a Canucks game is up for debate.
²I miss you Roberto. Please say the rumors that you are coming back tomorrow are true!

Photo credit: Tod Maffin on Flickr.