Jananas

Wednesday morning between 6:30-7am, someone broke the front passenger’s side window on Jason’s car. They stole his iPod and our GPS unit. I had just woken up and come downstairs when my neighbour yelled at me through my front window, letting me know. I then had the honour of waking up Jason to let him know (not a nice way to have to be woken up!). Thankfully they were able to get a good description of the suspect.

I went out and took photos (one of which is above), just in case we’d need them later. I also called the police to file a report. Thankfully the officer I spoke with had a good sense of humour, especially given the early hour of the day. After all of that was done Jason was able to call his insurance company to file a claim.

Because he drives a Scion (a sister company to Toyota and not currently sold in Canada), the only place that can repair the glass in the city is a Toyota dealership itself. Its going to be one expensive claim for the insurance company! Oh well, I figure it balances out all the money we saved them by going through low priced auto glass in Austin, Tx when we had to repair the windshield. The other not so great part about Scions not being available in Canada is that it will take 10+ business days to get the new glass in before the repairs can be completed. This sucks for Jason because he’s now out his deductible ($250) plus the cost of the rental car ($3/day) as his car was deemed unsafe to drive (because the window can’t be shut, anyone can access the vehicle thus increasing the potential for further damages and insurance claims).

Even worse is that the individual stole Jason’s iPod. It means that he doesn’t have any of his own music on him. And because all his own music is in Columbus on assorted harddrives it also means that he won’t have any of his own music on him for a while. The description of the stolen iPod follows:

• white 60 gig but was in a black silicone case
• colour/photo
• personalized with a quote from a Saul Williams song “and I know god personally / in fact he lets me call him me“

Hopefully someone out there will buy it from a pawn shop, wonder about the quote on the back, google it, and stumble upon this. By then it’ll probably be too late to save the music or get it back. I would assume that someone purchasing electronics from a pawn shop doesn’t care about the dubious source of those goods. Maybe stumbling upon this would make them think twice about the reprecussions for the people on the other side.

The entire thing is just a bummer all around. We’re out money for the deductible and to replace the stolen items and the individual who stole them wouldn’t have even been able to pawn them for very much. It also has made us feel more paranoid about the street and the safety of our possessions, as the suspect has been seen around on more than one occasion. I don’t like feeling like I can’t trust my fellow citizens to be respectful, kind, honest, etc.

Back in the end of May, I had my feet tattooed by Daniel DiMattia of Calypso Tattoos during a brief stop over in NYC. The original post is here. I thought I’d do a follow up post so that you can see for yourselves how they’ve actually healed up. A pet peeve of mine is seeing photos of modification/tattoo work right after they’ve been done and then never seeing how they looked once they are healed, because you only have part of the information on judging the quality of the artist. Plus, you have little information on judging for yourself how it might heal (and what the risks are therein). So without further ado, my pictures.

Here is a picture of the tattoos immediately after they were finished. I’m not going to lie – these sucked to have done! They definitely hurt a lot and made me feel sucky. The healing portion wasn’t fantastic either, and I was even lucky. I didn’t get massively swollen ‘baked potato’ feet or crazy itchiness, both of which are common based on other friends’ experiences. The main problem I had with healing was that they were tender and it was difficult to wear shoes/walk around (thankfully I didn’t have to do much of either).

Here is a picture I took yesterday (after having my nails done in some awesome matte gunmetal gray polish over at Heartbreakers in Toronto). I am super happy with the final results – the colour has mellow out nicely. I haven’t lost any ink at all, which is impressive and relieving (no touch ups in my near future, phew!). Overall, these are a testament to how important experience and artistry are in achieving a good final product. Thanks Daniel!

I’ve had a few months post-MBA to think and process and let things percolate (one of my favorite ‘visuals’ for how I feel that I process information). I’ve had a bunch of people ask me what I think that I learned/got out of the MBA program. Today’s thoughts distill the entire experience down to two main things.

First, is the ability to learn. You’d assume that any university program is about learning. I’d argue that in most cases its about what you learn. My MBA taught me the process of learning. I could pick something up (finance, accounting, operations, marketing, etc.) in reasonable detail in a six week period of time. What does this mean for my future? That if you give me something new to do, I’ll be able to learn about it and do it in a short period of time. I think that’s a pretty awesome skill to have.

Second, is the ability to access information. I may not remember every single detail of what I learned in my MBA (i.e. the exact process of calculating an IRR and what to look out for – we only did one example!). However, what I did learn was a management information system. I developed a way to categorize and catalogue data. So if someone is discussing a specific finance term that I’m not 100% on, I have a set of tools that will help me answer the problem quickly because I can access the data faster.

I’m still not totally sold on a lot of the content I was taught (although much of that is a result of personal business philosophies that are at odds with many standard and current business practices). I am however sold on the underlying lessons.

And yes, it still feels strange to say MBA and not MBA Candidate.

This summer I discovered that there is a local yarn store up by the cottage called Log Cabin Yarns (sadly, my mother already knew about it but didn’t bother to tell me!). I dropped in immediately and picked up a skein of sock yarn. I also found out that they have a sit & knit on Thursday afternoons. Since I don’t drive and was up at the cottage on my own, I didn’t think I’d be able to make it in. However, it turns out that a woman on the same road often comes in to knit and my dad ran into her husband the night before and a ride was arranged. I ended up going into the sit & knit, even if I was half the age of the rest of the group (a big change from my local stitch & bitch Tuesday nights at the Knit Cafe on Queen West).

It turns out that the ladies of the sit & knit group have several child-sized afghans on the go, to be donated to a local charity when they are finished. Each woman knits a strip about 5″ wide in a pattern of her choice, using yarn donated by Nancy (the proprietor). Its a fun project because each person gets to test out a new stitch/pattern and experiment. And because the work is spread over six or seven people, it doesn’t seem like quite as daunting a task. I was convinced to add a section to one. Nancy leant me a copy of a pattern book called “The Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches” and I picked a lovely & simply diamond pattern.

I chose a solid and more structured pattern because the section right below mine was a lace pattern in a chenille-type yarn. Overall, I think that the ladies have done a great job of matching colours and patterns. Here’s the afghan as it stands today – I can’t wait to see the final product!

Back in May, I blogged our favorite hissing face cat. We came across the cat and car in Kansas after stopping to try and check out prairie dog town. We caught sight of the cat making great hissing faces while loose in the car. Combined with the woman’s pronounced southern drawl, we’ve had hours of delight while laughing at the cat.

Which sets us up well for our own version of the story. As mentioned earlier today, we ended up having to bring my cat up to the cottage with us this past weekend. (There’s a cute picture of her sleeping in the sun, here.) What we didn’t realize is that Romeo doesn’t travel well in the car. After some very insistent meowing, we let her out of her carrier. She spent some time exploring the car (with us making sure that she wasn’t under foot or blocking Jason’s view) and the rest sleeping either in my lap or in the back seat. She did make some pretty good hissing cat faces, even though I wasn’t able to capture any of them on camera.

Climbing over the back of the seat to check things out.

Watching Jason pump gas.

Lastly, the infamous cat bridge between the seats.