I’ve been struggling with a head cold for a few days now and spent my night yesterday downloading some new music(legally). With the new snowfall today it seems a good time to start preparing for the indoor hibernation that is a Canadian winter. I’ve got a stack of games to play through thanks to EB Games trying to clear out stock at 3 games for $30, as well as more games on the way with Christmas fastly approaching.

I also discovered podcasts. I’ve always brushed off podcasts thinking there would be nothing there to catch my interest; that is until i started looking last night. It now seems I may have a new interest, media to get me over times when I don’t really wanna watch tv, or listen to my music. I gave Gordon Gartrell Radio a listen this afternoon and will keep subscribed to it. A podcast by Phonte of Little Brother speaking his mind over beats spun by DJ Brainchild, worth a good listen if you want to hear a smart and funny hiphopper speak his mind.  I was surprised to find REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER on the itunes podcast list.  Being a long time fan of Bill Maher it was a no brainer.  I also happily found, though not surprised to find, Jay And Silent Bob. Surely their podcast will keep me entertained the long cold winter.

Books, books, books. An essential part of any winter. Theres always so many choices that its not worth getting into, as I could walk into chapters and find any number of books to start reading. A necessity of the winter hibernation none the less.

For those times when I must venture outside I’m pretty excited to go driving through the snow with the WRX all wheel drive system, and unlike the rest of the lower mainlands drivers actually enjoy driving in the snow.

Grab your mittens and hats or crank up the heat and grab a blanket, winter is upon us and its time to hunker down into hibernation mode with a good book, games, music and podcasts because surely it will last us the next 4 months.

View from the front door

I managed to get myself into the seat of a Subaru WRX. A Black/Blue Mica 5 speed with plenty of torque to keep me happy up and down the BC hills.

Mr Scooby

First step is replacing some minor imperfections. Side mirror has a broken piece of glass, passenger fog light is cracked, and its rolling on winter tires.

New tires (and rims!) are on their way, sometime around mid-september.

Then I the other weekend I went on a shopping spree…

New fogs, that needed a desperate cleaning, two fog light covers, so rock chips don’t occur anymore, and two seat belt shoulder pads.
Now its time to start the upgrading. I’ve cleaned up the fogs, and started sanding the covers. I also went online and bought a new cabin air filter, it will help cut out the stale air smell in the car when the air is on.  Next after all that is wheels.

Welcome Mr Scooby, you’re my new project.

#1. Take off your sunglasses. They are for outside use only. In the mall you look like you’re confused, an asshole, or you’re covering up a black eye. If you’re wearing it somewhere dark like a movie theater or club I can only assume that you have suffered some sort of retardation or the cones and rods in your eyes have become over sensitized to light making it impossible to go anywhere without your glass, but granting you the ability to see in the dark.

#2. Your fake tan doesn’t make you tan. It makes you Orange, and you look like you’ve grown up in the sunny wastelands of Chernobyl. Go outside and get a real tan, you can actually disregard rule #1 in this instance.

#3. Cologne is meant to be spritzed, not bathed in. You smell like the clinique counter in Sears and it is mostly repulsive not attractive. You should be able to smell it, not taste it in the air around you.

#4. Language is meant to express yourself to others, you lack this skill and should think about reading a book now and then. “Buddy” “yoo guy” “yea man shit” “fuckin eh” “you know…”; this is not a conversation its the modern equivalent of discourse between cavemen or the studder of unfortunate turrets syndrome patients.

#5. Redbull is not a food group. Neither is Creatine

$6. You are not, I repeat you ARE NOT a UFC fighter. You cannot kick or punch your way out of a paper bag let alone a fight with someone who knows what they are doing. Because you take a MMA class with other like minded juice monkeys does not mean you’re the next GSP.

#7. Your girlfriend dressing like a whore doesn’t make her sexy, it makes her look like a whore.

#8. Skinny jeans are for women and eunuchs. If you’re not one of those you’re just embarrassing yourself and showing everyone you have no bulge.

#9. Canadian Tire is not for “performance” auto parts. Your car does not need performance parts. You need a new car.

#10. Stop being a douchebag, you’re not impressing anyone and you’re probably turning off a lot of people.

Among the vendors was a cellphone shop with various housings. Mainly BlackBerry and iPhone housings
North America lacks any nice colours for BlackBerry’s so it was nice to see other options. I decided on a dark blue and after a quick search on youtube on how to change the housing I had a new look. The actual dismantle and reassembly took about 5minutes but the outcome is refreshing and original for a North American BlackBerry.

And now the unveiling of the Bungs BlueBerry!
J. Pratt

Previously I couldn’t find a reasonable way considering I don’t have an internet plan for my BB. Its been a while since I looked. Now I see I can post by email. So viola here it is. If it works…

I guess I’ll see.
Sup test run.

Oh and here is a picture just to test that feature as well. J. Pratt

Snoopy is small and friendly, very easy going. At first Nova was weary around her but warmed up quickly. He will try to get close and sniff her, or follow behind to try and see what shes doing. The dog however has her own plans and they do not include the bunny. She doesn’t dislike him, she just doesn’t seem to care one way or the other if he is there as long as she still gets her normal amount of attention.

With it being obvious that Nova wants a friend we decided it might be a good idea to get a friend for him.
We looked across the local animal shelter websites and saw a few bunnies. We also saw 3 female rabbits of the same breed at the VRRA, the same rabbit rescue organization that we got Nova from initially.

We checked out the Coquitlam Animal Shelter first. They had a few small bunnies, but only one female. She seemed quite friendly though she enjoyed nipping at our clothes.  Later on we called the VRRA about coming by to see the rabbits and were told it would be best to bring Nova.
So on the weekend we packed Nova into his animal carrier and took the drive into Vancouver to the VRRA.

Of the 3 rabbits we saw on the website only 1 of the female lionhead rabbits remained. Though it worked out well because they immediately got along. Nova tried to mount, and she just ran. No fighting, so apparently this is a good sign. We agreed to bring her home on a foster-to-adopt program to make sure they get along well.  The bonding could take a few weeks or months but so far so good. Nova still tries to mount her, and she still runs away. Though if you can get them both to calm down she will groom Nova. A very good sign that they will eventually bond.

So welcome Sydney! and hopefully we now have a girlfriend for Nova.

Sydney and Nova

If you would like to visit the VRRA or get some info on rabbits and rabbit care they can be contacted at their website. www.vrra.org

My Diet this week.

I’m faced this week with a hurdle I’m not too sure which way to feel about. Eating a vegetarian diet for the week. The entire family will be eating vegetarian as a cleansing for the buddhist temple and the ritual they will be performing next week.
I’m interested to see how it will all play out through out the week, and the potential for a twist on our normal dishes using Tofu instead of meat. But I love meat, so on the opposite side I don’t know how much I will enjoy it. The diet is vegetarian, not vegan. That means no flesh or eggs, but dairy is fine(phew!)

As I have been working out regularly and fairly intensely I am going to have to pick up my protein needs elsewhere since now meat protein is out of the question. Bring on the peanut butter, dairy, nuts, soy and tofu. Oh! and of course some nutrition/protein bars will be a nice aide.

It may actually be a good experience as I have been slowly edging out unhealthy food, read: junk food; in favor of more healthy meal and snack choices. The temporary veggie diet may work as a nice cleanse to make it all the easier to have a healthy, well rounded diet. It would be a nice way to go into the next round of my workouts. March will be a cardio/aerobic intensive month, followed by a anaerobic lifting superset schedule (next blog post). It would feel nice to only be taking in foods that will help me stay active at a high level while rebuilding during the off or easy days.

I guess this week will tell how strong my will towards (or against) food is.

“On March 27 at 8:30 p.m., hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for an hour to demand action on climate change. But that’s just the beginning. Every hour, Canadians are taking small steps to lessen their impact on the environment. From hanging your clothes to dry to taking transit to work, those small steps add up to huge changes for the better. Get inspired by others who are living Earth Hour ever hour, and tell us your story.”

Sign up on the Earth Hour web page to pledge your support and learn some ways you can help fight climate change!
52% of Canadians said they took part last year, lets try and get a few more to join the fight for change!

http://wwf.ca/earthhour/

Example.

Just moving to B.C. I wanted to build up a good massage clinical practice. So I wrote it down and thought of ways to accomplish it.
One of the smaller goals was to do some kind of advertising and fund raising. Currently I am doing a fund raiser with the local SPCA.
Check out www.rmtcanada.com to read up on it.  The other goal I could see as a building block to a good practice is the number of
clients to increase by monthly.  I set it at a modest 10 new clients per month, not knowing how busy or slow things would be.  So far
I have surpassed 10 clients per month, every month. Last month I cleared 20 new clients. So I have reassessed and 12-15 new
clients should be the monthly goal moving forward.  If things keep moving forward I will reach my bigger goal of a busy massage clinic.

I realized in a random occurrence  of clarity after looking at an msn contacts status italics that simply dreaming big isn’t enough.  Its the follow through that matters most and makes the biggest difference.  Its all in the planning and continual refinement of goals and plans that moves desires from dreams to reality.
I have been doing it all around.  Looking into where I would like to be in the immediate, where I would like to be in the future. So far I can only say that the basics seem to work. Dream, then plan the attainability of your dreams.

My Taiji performance from 2009 Canadian Nationals. Post Up.