Our County Government as an Example

My boss and others here in County Government are part of a book, Working Across Boundaries: Making Collaboration Work In Government and Nonprofit Organizations by Russell M. Linden. It basically details some of our work implementing the Comprehensive Performance Partnership in County Government. A bit of government lingo, but trust me on this. Once you get a grip on what's going on it's all good. For more details on the Performance Partnership, visit the National Labor Management Association website and click on the link for the Comprehensive Performance Partnership (on the left side of page).

What Office Space character are you?
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Community Orchestra Drivel

I enjoy playing the violin with an orchestra. I hate the arrogance that sometimes accompanies the people that make up the orchestra. We had our last rehearsal last night for the community orchestra's concert on Sunday. The conductor picked out some decent tunes, all arrangements, but good stuff. I could have done without the self-appointed first chair, violinist giving us all a lesson on ricochet bowing. As if we were all morons. It was pretty obvious that we all knew what ricochet bowing was and followed along in her lesson just to amuse ourselves. I probably wouldn't have minded the "refresher" if it wasn't "taught" with such arrogance and in a patronizing manner. On the upside, it looks like my family will give a good showing on Sunday. Nice to have family that cares to drive out of their way to come hear you play.

On another orchestra note. They only do two concerts a year. Then there's the Living Christmas Tree musical/concert thing. I was curious about playing, but apparently somebody has to die off before you can be considered. That's even more a factor if you're a violinist like me. I commented ruefully, "Gee, guess I should have been a violist" to the fellow passing out music for the Xmas Tree concert. Didn't help that the aforementioned first chair violinist gushed that the Living Christmas Tree was the living end when it came to local concerts. I had to keep myself from visibly rolling my eyes. Right now, I'm waiting to hear back about a possible gig in a pit orchestra for an upcoming comedy. More time out of my life, but I think it might be fun. I always enjoyed pit orchestra in high school and college.

They Think We Joke About Snow on Halloween

The following is the weather forecast for our area over the next week. A predominant theme is snow. I'm just not ready to shovel, people.

INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...JAMESTOWN...OLEAN...WELLSVILLE
901 AM EST TUE OCT 29 2002

.THIS AFTERNOON...THICKENING CLOUDS WITH RAIN OR SNOW LIKELY BY
SUNSET. CHILLY WITH HIGHS NEAR 40.

.TONIGHT...SNOW OR RAIN LIKELY EARLY...THEN SNOW LIKELY FROM LATE
EVENING ON. ACCUMULATION 1 TO 2 INCHES. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S.

.WEDNESDAY...SNOW OR RAIN LIKELY...MAINLY IN THE MORNING. ANOTHER
INCH OF WET SNOW MAY ACCUMULATE. CONTINUED COLD WITH HIGHS IN THE
MID 30S.

.WEDNESDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY. LOWS IN THE UPPER 20S.

.THURSDAY...CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF SNOW OR RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON.
HIGHS IN THE LOWER 40S.

.THURSDAY NIGHT...SNOW LIKELY. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S.

.FRIDAY...SNOW OR RAIN LIKELY. WINDY WITH HIGHS NEAR 40.

.SATURDAY...SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. COLD AND WINDY. LOWS IN THE UPPER
20S AND HIGHS IN THE UPPER 30S.

.SUNDAY...CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW OR RAIN. COLD AND WINDY.
LOWS IN THE UPPER 20S AND HIGHS IN THE UPPER 30S.

.MONDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF SNOW OR RAIN. CONTINUED COLD.
LOWS IN THE UPPER 20S AND HIGHS IN THE UPPER 30S.

Doonesbury & Blogging

Check out this week's Doonesbury. All blog related.. and that's a good thing.

Huge WTF Factor in Latest Dreams

I had some bizarro dreams last night. It basically involved me and some guy running away from an evil, old lady. We hid in a vineyard near a house and watched to see if the lady had drove by looking for us. The owner of the house came out and "caught" us. The guy I had "escaped" with cut his arm on some sharp edge around the door to the house and the owner cleaned up the wound. We went inside, and I noticed that the owner of the house actually looked quite a bit like a former significant other. He even had framed posters of bands that my former was into. Go figure. All sorts of too much information stuff followed and then I woke up. According to various dream interpretation sites, I'm in a good spot in my life but I'm ready to move on and drop some of the baggage I've been carrying around. Made sense and I was glad to know that the sites weren't telling me I had a subconscious longing for sex with strangers. Maybe I've been listening to too much Depeche Mode.

My little girl...Drive anywhere...Do what you want...I don't care

I've been listening to one my latest music acquistions, some compilation of stuff by Depeche Mode, as I'm driving around. I have a fairly good memory and was being whisked away to the early 1990's as "Enjoy the Silence" and "Personal Jesus" reverberated throughout my car. I tag on some sort of an association with most music I listen to in terms of where I was when that song came out, how it related to my life, or a mood it created. DM was always more about mood than lyrics or time and place. I think a lot of their songs represented what I thought sex was all about in terms of David Gahan's voice. His voice has a smooth, dark, deep quality to it that just pushes buttons. His voice represents the sort of guy you'd love to date or run off with but you know your parents would totally be against you having any contact with him. I'm not referring to any of Gahan's personal troubles here.. I'm just talking about his voice.

Still Celebrating..

With the uncertainty that the U.S. Postal service delivers mail, I'm still receiving birthday cards and really nice packages. Round that off with a visit to Buffalo this weekend to see my parents, and you get a week long celebration of my birthday. Nice, eh? The rest of the actual day was very pleasant. I had lunch with Matt at one of our favourite lunch spots, The Bagel Company. When I got into work, my co-worker totally surprised me by offering me two tickets to the Sabres game that night. It was an excellent game between the Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers! It was even better since Buffalo won, natch'. So thanks again to everyone *grins*

An Easy 26th

I know my boss had no idea he was giving me a nice break on my birthday when he gave me a research project to do at the library near my house. This meant I got to sleep in this morning, am wearing jeans instead of "work clothes," and I'll get to meet up with Matt for lunch later on. The library just opened, so I'll head over there in a moment. Another nice thing about not having to drive right into Mayville was that I got to make myself a proper cup of English Breakfast tea and eat blueberry waffles. Mmm! So even though I have to start phone banks tonight and probably won't have too much fun today, it still will be better than a regular day of work. And of course I thank the friends who have sent me best wishes :-)

Chick Book Shopaholic Incident

Gah! In a quick lunch hour moment, I spent nearly $40 on various chick books and a sorta chick-book mystery series I love. My one comfort is that I didn't pay full price for anything and the prices I did pay could not be matched if I was physically in a bookstore. Blame the trip to Orlando on this latest spree. While waiting in the Orlando airport for our flight, I bought Confessions of a Shopaholic. I quickly read this book while waiting at the airport and then on our subsequent flight to Chicago. While waiting for our connecting flight to Buffalo, I bought Good In Bed, which I flew through on Friday and Saturday. I occassionally go through these huge spurts of reading, whether it's mysteries, various novels by specific authors, or chick books. The latter is usually an easy read, funny, and something I can related to in bits. Sure it's the lazy way out when it comes to literature. I really should be concentrating on making more headway in Infinite Jest, but I got logjammed somewhere after page 50 and haven't been able to bring myself to pick it up. Guess I just need casual reads after long days at work.

Catching Friends In Town

Matt and I had the opportunity to catch our friend Ryan subbing bass for a band, South Central, in the Jamestown area on Friday night. It was really cool since I had never seen Ryan play before and there was the extra bonus of not having to travel far to see him. The band was good. A mix of Marshall Tucker, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and some originals. Matt drank too much for his stomach, but the bar scene was comfortable. That's rare for me. Normally I feel a little out of place in bars, but the bartender was jovial and the crowd was more our age and laid back. Unfortunately, Ryan had to hop on back to Rochester that night after the gig to go to work, but I was still glad to see him. There's a chance he will be attending SUNY Fredonia for music ed, so that means we'd have another person to hang out with on the weekends (or during the week when you just can't wait for the weekends to have a drink on the town). Coolness. *nods*

Some Congrats!!

I must extend Congratulations to Heidi and Kevin on their recent marriage this past Friday :-) Best of happiness to you both!

Trip to Orlando: A Nutshell

I've been neglecting this blog in terms of a promised overview of our trip to Orlando Columbus Day weekend. Call it too much to talk about! But to start with the Thursday before we left:

Matt got us tickets for the season opener for the Sabres. I've never really been to a major league sports event unless you count the Gravity Games this past August. Tickets weren't selling well, so Matt was able to score seats right behind the player's bench where the camera guys stand. That means we were on tv at least once. Kind of cool, but I was more interested in the game. Lots of fighting. I kept asking Matt, "Do they always fight this much?" He laughed at me a little I think. Great game. Sabres beat the Rangers (I think it was the Rangers at least.. it's been over a week). Good times.

Our hotel rocked! Literally. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was right on, what I call, the Universal Studios grounds. We could walk to all the attractions, or if we timed it right, take a shuttle boat. I've never stayed in a hotel room this nice before. The bedding wasn't that thin comforter over a flannel blanket that you get in many overnight accomodations. Nope. It was nice, heavy blankets. The pillows were feather pillows, which was great for me, but Matt had to use two of the "extra" decorative pillows since he was allergic to the feathers.

The weekend was mostly spent at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, riding all the rides that my stomach could handle. I found out that I can tolerate only so many twisty-turny rides in a row. We did go on just about everything. I highly reccomend the Spiderman ride, The Cat in the Hat, Terminator 3D, and Dueling Dragons. Good stuff! We had good meals, but honestly, nothing really stood out. Not even our trip to our "favourite" restaurant, The Melting Pot. I think that was due to eating too late a lunch and then not walking around as much as we did in Washington DC. The end result was that we were unable to finish the food we ate. Plus, the music du jour at this particular Melting Pot was John Denver. Ok, no offense, but I would have preferred some muted jazz thankyouverymuch. Still.. good times.

Matt and I concur that our favourite moments were laying by the pool on the "beach" (a sandy, beach-like area built on the hotel grounds) and having a drink, and dancing at Motown in CityWalk. Nothing like getting "your groove on" with a bunch of other people that don't know how to dance! But like I said.. Good times!

Hopefully, my pictures will be ready to pick up today or tomorrow. I'll put them on ImageStation when I have a moment. Unfortunately, one picture that I won't have a digital copy of is the picture of Matt and I with Sponge Bob Square Pants. We always joke that we never have pictures of the two of us and when we saw Sponge Bob, we couldn't resist being a little silly. One of the many merchandising things they pull at Universal is having people take digital pictures of you with characters or of anywhere in the park. At the end of the day, you can go pick up your picture in a nice little souvenier folder. The funny part is what was a tee-hee moment, actually turned into a good picture of Matt and me. We look like we're having a good time. We were! And I used funds from a survey I got paid for while at Universal Studios to buy the picture.

Oh yeah. I got paid to take a survey on a new kind of yogurt. Anyone who knows me, knows I consume mass quantities of yogurt a year. It's a quick, healthy lunch and I've been eating it since I was a baby. Yes, I get tired of it, but I figure I have to get some of my calcium intake from someplace! So imagine me getting approached to test-taste a "new" kind of yogurt. I don't know what kind of a statement it is on me that when they showed me the flavours I could choose from to taste-test that I knew what kind and style of yogurt I was going to be tasting. Sad!! It was Yoplait Whips (I believe since there are two brands that are trying out "whipped" yogurt) and I tried the Orange Creme flavour. Good stuff. Free snack along with $5 for my time. Matt didn't get to do the survey since he doesn't eat yogurt regularly. Poor guy :-)

Matt and I topped off our visit by a drink in Velvet, the lounge in the hotel. Not a usual thing for us, but the lounge was just too cool looking to pass up. If we hadn't had dessert already I would have had their smores. I settled for a Midori/Vodka Martini. Mmm. Matt had a beer. Of course. So I'm hoping that the last picture on my roll of film will be of me, holding a very green drink, smiling and savouring the last moments of our trip.

Incidentally, we couldn't have afforded this trip if I hadn't won the contest. After seeing rates for the parks/hotel/flights, we figured that we could have afforded it if we were making it a honeymoon trip (since it was that expensive) or "the" trip for the year. Naturally, I decided that since we "saved" money by not having to pay any for this trip that we should immediately book another trip. Want to take a guess? It's New Orleans the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. day. Jet Blue-ing it there. Wish us luck!

Freakin' Weather!

I shouldn't swear since this nothing unusual, but I got snowed on today. Not only that, but a car pulled into the parking lot outside my office with measurable snow accumulated on the rear window. Blast! And they're predicting snow for next Tuesday as well. Durn it if it doesn't snow on my birthday again. *sighs* Oh well. It is Western New York afterall.

Are you an alpha, beta, or gamma girl?

Rain

I don't mind the rain and cold in October. It's November that puts me off.

*Yawn* A Thursday Morning Boredom Thing

Courtesy of Heather

1. Your name spelled backwards. Ailuj
2. Where were your parents born? Mom – Niagara Falls Dad – Buffalo, NY
3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? An update from Macafee Virus Scanner
4. What's your favorite restaurant? California Rollin’ and The Melting Pot
5. Last time you swam in a pool? Saturday, Oct. 12, 2002 at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, FL
6. Have you ever been in a school play? Yes, an American History Musical in 5th Grade and a Broadway Review Musical in 6th Grade
7. How many kids do you want? Zero to 1. Most of the time I really don’t want kids
8. Type of music you dislike most? Country and Christian, but Christian the most
9. Are you registered to vote? Of course! Democrat
10. Do you have cable? Yes
11. Have you ever ridden on a moped? Nope
12. Ever prank call anybody? I did the call-and-hang-up thing and I once prank paged a friend
13. Ever get a parking ticket? Twice. Got out of both of them
14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? No
15. Furthest place you ever traveled. England in 1995
16. Do you have a garden? Yes, but it is mostly composed of plants left by the previous tenant of the house
17. What's your favorite comic strip? For Better or For Worse
18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Yes
19. Bath or Shower, morning or night? Shower in the morning
20. Best movie you've seen in the past month? Month? I don’t know if I’ve been to the movies in a month, but in the past few months I would have to put down “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”
21. Favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni
22. Chips or popcorn? Popcorn
23. What color lipstick do you usually wear? None usually, but when I’m going out Clinique Surprise
24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? No.. that’s just bizarre
25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? No.
26. Orange Juice or apple? Orange with calcium
27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine? My boyfriend to Taco Hut since it was right across from where he works
28. Favorite type chocolate bar? Twix
29. When was the last time you voted at the polls? Primary Day, Sept. 10, 2002
30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? Sometime in the past month
31. Have you ever won a trophy? Twice. The first was for doing well in piano juries and the second was for a Bocce Ball Tournament
32. Are you a good cook? I could be but I avoid cooking.
33. Do you know how to pump your own gas? *rolls eyes* Yes
34. Ever order an article from an infomercial? No, but I’ve read details about infomercial stuff online.
35. Sprite or 7-up? Sprite.
36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? We were required to wear royal blue short sleeve shirts at my first job (Amusement Park)
37. Last thing you bought at a pharmacy? Lip balm and female stuff
38. Ever throw up in public? In a way.. I was really sick at work one day and threw up in the ladies’ room and then threw up again into my lunch bag after pulling over to the side of the road in my car
39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or find true love? I have my true love (awww) so a couple million dollars would be nice
40. Do you believe in love at first sight? Not really. The last two guys I’ve dated I initially thought were gay and wasn’t interested. Goes to show you how wrong you can be!
41. Ever call a 1-900 number? Nope.
42. Can ex's be friends? Sure! A lot of my friends are ex’s.
43. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital? My grandfather after he had a stroke
44. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby? No.. mostly fuzz
45. What message is on your answering machine? It’s me giving the standard “We’re not available, leave a message” message
46. What's your all time favorite Saturday Night Live Character? Wayne and Garth of Wayne’s World
47. What was the name of your first pet? Fishy-too.. it was a fish.
48. What is in your purse? Various credit/store cards, money, checkbook, brush, lip balm, headache medicine, sunglasses, stain remover
49. Favorite thing to do before bedtime? Check my email one last time and watch the news.
50. What is one thing you are grateful for today? The beautiful colors of the leaves on the trees.

"Somewhere around 25 bizarre becomes immature." - Janet "Singles"

Here's to being mired in my mid-20's in less than a week.

Storms In Orlando

I'll give a more complete update on our trip to Orlando, but first some of the excitement that happened while we were there. On Sunday, late afternoon, a wild storm swept through the area while we were at Islands of Adventure. For some newspaper details, go here or here. Needless to say, the rain flooded the streets of the park, sprung leaks in the roof of the gift shop where we were taking shelter, and produced dime-sized hail for several minutes. The storm itself lasted quite a bit. The relief is that Matt and I had seen everything we wanted to see both at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios.

The Budget No One Wants to Talk About

New York State's budget is a mess. The worst thing about it is that no one is talking about it. At least one newspaper picked up on this little fact and ran this story yesterday. If you're itching to write any emails/letters or even ask your state representatives in person what's going on and what they're going to do about, now would be a good time.

Sleepy Cinnabar Gets A Wake-Up

I grew up in a pretty quiet town. My nieghborhood didn't get a lot of traffic. Neighbors knew each other. All the kids played together. Your typical suburb. That's why I find it disquieting that something like this has happened on my former-street. I asked my dad to make sure my mom locked the doors while she was home during the day. Now that she's retired, she's obviously home more often by herself. It's a little scary.

We're #1 For Golf!

Jamestown is getting some respect in the November issue of Golf Digest. They have listed Jamestown as the #1 metro area for golf. Not bad for a city that boasts a population of 31,000.

I should note that the three out of the top places ranked are in Upstate New York. And Rochester, NY ranks in at #37. Who says you need the big cities for good golf?

Go Rory!

HOUDA NAMED AMERKS TEAM CAPTAIN

Taylor and Fitzpatrick named assistants

ROCHESTER NAMES CAPTAINS AT MEDIA LUNCH:

Rochester Americans Head Coach Randy Cunneyworth announced Tuesday that veteran defenseman Doug Houda has been named the team captain for the 2002-03 season. He also released at Nathaniel's Pub that Chris Taylor and Rory Fitzpatrick will serve as the Amerks assistant captains. Houda enters his fifth season with the Amerks and brings over 1,000 games of professional experience to the ice each night. Taylor has been an assistant captain for the past two seasons and led Rochester with 66 points (21+45) last season. Fitzpatrick becomes the first Rochester native to wear the "A" on his Amerk sweater. The Irondequoit native enters his second season with the Amerks

I grew up two houses away from Rory. I used to hang out with him and the other kids in the neighborhood to play hide and go seek, kill the carrier, go swimming, ride bikes, and all sorts of stuff that kids do. It's cool to see him doing alright for himself.

Somebody Shoot Me

CNN thinks it can be "hip" by adding teen jargon to its newscasts. I think I'm gonna hurl.

From Autumn to Sweltering Summer

Matt and I will be taking off for a four-day trip to Orlando this weekend. That means no blogs until we get back. I'm excited about the trip, but not looking forward to 85+ degree days with over 50% humidity. Throw in some scattered thunderstorms and it could be downright miserable. I'm hoping for the best. We are staying in a pretty cool spot, The Hard Rock Hotel, so we'll be close to all the stuff at Universal Studios. The only bad bits will be flying in and out seeing as how our flights are rediculously early in the morning (we fly out at 6:33 am on Friday). Oh well. I did win the trip, so it's not like I can complain too much.

Achtung, Baby! It's October

It didn't totally feel like Autumn until Monday and Tuesday when I thought to pop in U2's Achtung, Baby while driving around to work and various other places. Something about that album and this time of year. It fits. It would fit even more if it was accompanied by brisk winds, rain and thunder. I'm slightly envious of a friend's recent "date" with a rainstorm where he stood outside and got soaking wet as the thunder crashed around him. Even though I'm not a big fan of being cold and wet, there were moments where it just seemed appropriate to be assaulted by wind and rain. My friends and I used to hang out at the Irondequoit Bay Pier a lot when it was stormy outside. It was like we were either trying to channel the natural power of the storm or help contribute to it through our mess of hormones and unexpended energy.

Stray Cats and Vampires

During the height of the swing dancing craze in Rochester, Matt B. and I went to a dance event at one of the churches in the city. The dance was held in the traditional basement-with-live-band style. It had a very nostalgic feel to it. That night, the place was packed since the dance included a short lesson on some swing dance steps. Matt and I followed along with the "rock-step" pattern. Unfortunately, this pattern only works for songs in 3/4. The song they played right after we learned this nifty little step was in 4/4. It kinda left us falling a little over our feet, wondering what to do with the extra beat.

Meanwhile, a group of guys came in all dressed in black. Black pants, black shirts. Nothing outrageous. I noted that some of them looked familiar. It turned out that they all roleplayed Vampire: The Masquerade at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), which Matt was also a part of at one time. Matt and I giggled a little over the fact that even outside the game, the roleplayers insisted on wearing the pins of their "clans." I ended up dancing with a few of them since they recognized me and felt comfortable enough to try their hand at dancing. It was a good time all in all. The whole swing movement in the late 1990's was a pretty good time in general.

Stutson Street/Patrick O'Rourke Bridge Pictures

Finally.. some pictures you go can go look at. My favourite is the sunset picture I took as the drawbridge went up on my visit home in August.

Sheptastic.Com To Go Off the Air

Go visit Sheptastic.Com before it totally goes down. Shep did not renew the domain name and the site could be down in hours or days depending on how fast things work. Sheptastic.Com was one of my biggest refferal sites and he always had some quirky insight into the day's news and various other things. We'll miss you Shep!

Dinner at the Horseshoe Inn

We went with a friend to this restaurant in Catt Co (aka Cattaraugus County) last night that features endless racks of guns and various animal heads on the walls and ceilings. It got better when the waitresses brought out a birthday cake for a party, sang happy birthday, and then placed a helmet with antlers on top of the birthday woman's head. What can I say? This is country living!

We Go Bald for Basketball

Matt and I attended a fundraiser Friday night in honor of a local guy who died of cancer. The fundraiser was for a youth basketball team program at the YMCA and the gimmick was to have people pledge money to other people to get their heads shaved. So now Matt is bald and a bit funny looking. His boss, the mayor, also got his head shaved which got him a lot of "props" such as, "Wow.. the mayor is getting his head shaved? That's quality man!" from the drunk guys in the crowd. Good event overall. I think they raised $30,000. The only downer was high winds leftover from Hurricane Lili knocked out power towards the end of the event, but since the beer taps still worked and the bartenders had flashlights, a lot of people stayed for a bit more. Crazy.

What box do you get put in?
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Clinton For President

I'm wholeheartedly in favour of Clinton for President in 2004. However, not the Clinton you think I'm referring to (ahem.. not Hillary). I'm referring to former-President Bill Clinton. The idea was brought up on a local talk show that while the President cannot serve more than 2 consecutive terms, it apparently doesn't say anything about that President running at another time. If former President Clinton keeps giving speeches like this one in England, I don't know of a better idea. Clinton surely showed everyone in the E.U. and in the White House here that he's much more articulate and more able at rallying leaders to an idea than Bush. I'm liking this idea more so everyday. Bill Clinton for President in 2004. Yes.. I like it very much.

*post note* Blast. Just found out the Constitution does say that a President cannot serve more than two years. That's it. Darn shame.

Resurgence of Snow

The Canadian Rapper, Snow, seems to have made a bit of a resurgence in the music world. After his hit single, "Informer," got buried under the drift of other one-hit wonders, he will be coming out with a new album this November. Since I live close enough to Canada to actually pick up their radio stations, I heard his reggae-pop tune bouncing on the former 101.1 The River (now 105.1 out of Niagara Falls/St. Catherines, ONT area). Canadian stations are required by CRTC that 35% of the content on their airwaves will be Canadian. These guidelines were created basically to ensure that the United States didn't quietly take over all of the Canadian media. And I like to think, in a happy happy kind of way, that if it weren't for these guidelines then we never would have great imports like Kids In The Hall or Sarah McLachlan (when she was a true Canadian import). But getting back to Snow: his old single, "Informer," seems to have popped up all over in-house radio stations in restaurants, playlists for various blogs I read, and aforementioned Canadian radio stations. If you couldn't stand Mr. "12 Inches of Snow" in the past, you have one thing to be grateful for where he's concerned. His second cousin is Steven Page, of Barenaked Ladies fame. If it weren't for "Informer," "One Week" would have never been as big a hit (according a quote by Steve on a Snow-fansite.

Light! Damnit! Light!

I had the distinct experience of going through several years of Girl Scouts while growing up. Fortunately, I had friends to "share the pain" with me. In the end we ended up with some pretty funny memories of different shenanigans. The most popular memory being of the time one of our fellow scouts getting stuck in a urinal at a Lock-In.

The troop I belonged to wasn't huge on badges, or maybe I wasn't, but our leaders insisted on some sort of pomp and circumstance come the end of a school year. One year, the leaders decided that we needed to light candles and talk about the freedoms we have in this country and what we all would do as Girl Scouts to protect those freedoms. This led to much hilarity as we tried to light candles while reading the little notecards provided to us. The shining moment in it all was my friend Anne trying to get the candle to light. In her frustration she exclaimed "Light damnit! Light!" She was admonished by our Leaders, but not before the rest of us had bust out laughing (if I remember correctly).

Anyhow, this all came rushing back as I looked through some of the many papers I brought back to Jamestown from my parent's house. I found the notecard I had to read while light the candle. When we practiced we also read anything and everything written on the note, including emphasizing anything that was underlined (in italics).:
Scout #4 -
"May the light of this candle shine as a symbol that I will serve My Country. (Light #4) In a democracy everyone counts, and I am important because I am part of the vast nation of people who respect human freedom. And because we respect human freedom, we shall take responsibility in serving our country to keep it free."

Sure, it was a good message but we just weren't in the mood for it I guess. By June, most kids don't give two hoots about ceremony and just want to get on with vacation. Still. Good times.

What Underappreciated Female Vocalist Are You?
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