Hockey pool, week 9

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Many thanks to Alyssa for keeping the scores while I was away!

Big shake-up today… they’ve changed the values assigned to each player, so I’m going to have to rejig the team to make it fit under the cap!

Posted in hockey pool 2009-2010 | 8 Comments

My first byline

Posted on November 26, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

In “MS Hope MS Heroes”, the MS Society of Canada’s BC & Yukon Division member newsletter.

I have a couple of good friends with MS, one of whom works for the MS Society. I’ve raised money and volunteered for the Society before, but this was my first opportunity to use my professional training and skills in the process! My friend put me in touch with the local Communications Manager, and this piece of blatant nepotism skillful networking helped said Manager respond to reader demand for more news about MS research advances, while helping me add to my nascent portfolio. Win-win FTW!
So. The weird capitalisation errors. Not mine, I swear1 – and I can prove it! I’m going to be writing at least one more article for the same publication, and possibly many more (it beats being a route marshal for the annual sponsored walk, which always seems to take place in a rainstorm). I do feel that I should point out the errors in order to avoid a future repetition, but as the editors and many of the other staff are volunteers, I don’t want to be mean.
Something tells me that my next email might take almost as long to craft as the article itself…

1 Unlike any errors in this blog post, before Richard says anything.

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

I think Morgan likes her present!

Posted on November 26, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?
She just needs to grow into it.
Posted in photos, silliness | Comments Off on I think Morgan likes her present!

Cuba: beach days

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve never done the all-inclusive thing before, and when we first began to plan this trip, I wasn’t planning to start. But it turned out that a package of one week’s 5-star* all-inclusive accommodation plus direct charter flight from Vancouver to Varadero cost only $100 each more than buying just the flights from Air Canada, which would also have entailed spending a night in or near Toronto airport. So in the end, it was a no-brainer. We had to pay an extra $100 each to push the return flight back by a week, but it still worked out as a good deal!

We stayed at Sandals, near the end of the Varadero peninsula.  It’s a really well laid out resort; low-rise (no more than three storeys) with lots of greenery, including an area we called Narnia:

We said to another couple we met “the quickest way back to the restaurant is through Narnia”, and they looked at us like we were nuts

and some really well constructed public spaces (i.e. bars).

And, of course, the beach.

The beach was simply amazing. Mr E Man said it was better than anything he’s seen in Australia, Thailand, or Bali. Powdery white sand, turquoise water, nice big waves to play in… heaven!

wave!

Being peelywally Celts, we always chose shady chairs under the palm-thatched umbrellas to sit and read and play cards or chess, but we spent most of our time in or on the water. There was only one day when the water was calm enough to take out the resort’s kayaks, but we made the most of it! They were the sit-on-top kind, but the nice warm water didn’t warrant the greater stability of the more enclosed kayaks that we’re used to.

Time for a new profile photo, perhaps?!

We had tons of fun trying to kayak surf – and the instructor who once told me that it’s a difficult skill to master and that I should take a course before trying it was proven correct, as we managed to roll the thing in a great big wave as we were trying to come back to the beach! I found myself under water with no idea which way was up, or where the boat and paddle were, so I instinctively curled into a ball and covered my head with my arms until a couple of other waves had gone over me and I knew the coast was clear. This caused Mr E Man and a couple of other observers to freak out for a few seconds, until I resurfaced with a big grin shouting “that was fun, let’s do it again!” (and we did, after I retrieved my paddle from 30 metres down the beach).

After a long hard slog of grants and manuscripts and swine flu and no vacation days since early March, this first unchallenging week was just what the doctor ordered!

Modelling the latest in beach haute couture

—————-
*A Cuban 5-star is like a 3.5-star anywhere else. Embargoes will do that to ya.

Posted in kayaking, photos, silliness, travel | 15 Comments

Home is where the kettle is

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Cuba was awesome. I highly recommend it to those of you who are able to visit (sorry, American blog buddies!) I’m sure I’ll bore you all to tears with my planned series of upcoming posts and photos*, but I’ll try to intersperse them with other random ramblings intelligent insights.

First, though, I have to deal with a logjam of digital information that is threatening to unleash a flood of epic proportions upon my poor jetlagged** head:

>250 work emails to read / file / answer / delete
>350 grant opportunity announcements and work-related Google alerts to pick through
>400 “proper” blog posts to read (not including LOLcats etc)
>1000 journal article alerts to browse (in Google Reader – I recently switched all my TOC alerts from email to RSS, which makes things sooooo much easier to manage).

I hate feeling like I’m missing out on anything, so if there have been any major announcements, developments, or fights in our little corner of the blogosphere, I’d appreciate a wee linkie to take me to the action! I’ll do my best to catch up on everyone’s news over the next couple of weeks or so, but until then:

  • why is it so fucking dark and cold?
  • why did the local sandwich shop not have a band playing when I went to get my lunch?
  • why did no-one try to sell me cigars or lead me to their brother’s restaurant on the walk there and back?
  • why have I not had a single drink yet today? It’s, like, after five!

Mind you, I’ve been back for only 27 hours and I’ve already done lots of wonderful things that weren’t an option in Cuba:

  • watched hockey
  • arsed about on the internet
  • had a really good cup of tea (actually, three)
  • eaten sushi
  • drunk wonderful, tasty, refreshing tapwater
  • snuggled under a blankie in a cold room
  • rubbed Saba’s belly and Google’s chin
  • slagged off the government

Home. There’s no place like it.

———————————-

*um. Our new “waterproof” camera did great on its first field test – we got some great shots on, in, and under the nice calm water – but it turned out only to be waterproof if you don’t take it into crashing Atlantic surf that picks you up and smacks you back down into the water. It might just be a shorted-out battery. The photos on the card might be salvagable. Luckily, we’d taken our old camera (literally held together with duct tape and an elastic band) with us, with the aim of giving it away to a school or university, so we used that for the second week (dodgy Cuban batteries allowing – I’d forgotten to recharge the ones in it). But the awesome photos we took on the most beautiful beach either of us has ever seen, and in gloriously photogenic Habana, might not be recoverable. Boooooooooooo.

**Doesn’t it seem like three hours shouldn’t be enough to bother you? And yet, every time I visit the East coast, it gets me.

Posted in food glorious food, meta, music, technology, travel | 13 Comments

Hell 1 Nightmare 1

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I got the flu.
But the title of this post does not refer to my symptoms, which I’m pleased to report have been relatively mild [1]. It refers instead to what the people responsible for making, distributing, and rationing the H1N1 vaccine must be going through at the moment.
Honestly, there’s no pleasing some people – first they were complaining about the government approving the vaccine before it had been tested to their satisfaction (apparently unaware that it’s being made in essentially the same way as every other flu vaccine for years), and now they’re complaining that it wasn’t approved quickly enough, and are crying conspiracy! over the news that the manufacturers can’t maintain a steady rate of production. Add to this the normal levels of anti-vaccine hysteria, and I don’t envy the people tasked with this job one little bit.
Yes, there have been manufacturing problems – but what do you expect when dealing with a biological system? Biology is messy. It’s not like a manufacturing plant where the rate of input of parts determines the rate of output of product – anyone who’s ever worked in a lab knows that sometimes things just don’t work like they should. Cells don’t grow, antibodies don’t bind, plasmids don’t ligate. Why else would otherwise rational human beings wear lucky socks on important experiment days, or keep a lucky troll on their bench?[2]
The government and the vaccine manufacturing companies need to do a better PR job and get this kind of information out there.
They can leave out the part about the lucky socks, though.
Any typos or grammatical errors in this post can be written off as a symptom of the flu

1 The fever and aches started at 5 am on Saturday, and were almost completely over by Monday morning. I’m still coughing very painfully, and I have very little mental and zero physical energy, but I can breathe more freely than I could even yesterday, and should be on my flight to Varadero on Saturday night as planned (assuming my husband doesn’t get it – but he has the constitution of an ox, rarely gets sick, and gets over things very quickly when he does succumb).

2 Socks mine, troll labmate’s.

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Caught by the fuzz

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?
Is it just me, or are animal paw pads just the cutest thing ever?
From big scary beasts*

to my own two kitties, those pads are just adorable!
Saba has the fuzziest paws I’ve ever seen on a cat.
Front:

Back:

I think she must be part polar bear.
Our house is all laminate floors; no wonder her back end sometimes skids out on fast corners.
—————————————————-
*my friend sent me this photo; I don’t know the source.
Posted in furry friends, photos | 8 Comments

Hockey pool, week 5

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Gaah!

This week’s picks are critical for me. I won’t be able to change my picks from Cuba, so today’s choices will have to last me for three weeks… so I have to try and guess which injured players will be back soon enough to make an impact! That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it…

I’ll be away for the next 2 Mondays, so unless one of the other players wants to post the weekly results, there will be no updates for a while! Good luck!

Posted in hockey pool 2009-2010 | 4 Comments

Bad week

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I have the swine flu.

Well, some kind of flu, anyway. I woke up at about 5am on Saturday with a cough, sore throat, aching joints, and low-grade fever. I seem to already be past the worst of the fever and aches, but that cough is just nasty, and while I’m not actually short of breath, my breathing doesn’t feel as free and easy as usual. So I stayed home on the sofa all weekend while Mr E Man went to an awesome Hallowe’en party/sleepover on the Sunshine Coast.

I’m still too sick to do any useful work – I had to lie down for an hour after doing one load of laundry yesterday. My colleague has just emailed to confirm that our flu guidelines mean I’m not allowed into work all this week, even if I feel better. (I’m based in the research building, but the clinical building is just over the road, and there’s a lot of traffic (patients and staff) between the two). As soon as my 7 day isolation period is up, I’ll be getting on a plane… so I’m going to be horribly, horribly behind when we get back from vacation! Oh well, if I feel better later in the week I’ll get one of my colleagues to send me some of the documents I was working on last week. And I can call into my various meetings, if my colleagues don’t mind listening to me cough.

I’m thankful for two things though: the timing (the WHO’s 7 day isolation recommendation means I’ll be OK by the time our flight takes off at 10pm on Saturday), and the fact that (so far!) I haven’t had the gastric symptoms that some people have been getting. I hate throwing up, almost to the point of phobia.

So, it could be worse. I have movies, internet, podcasts, books, and kitties to keep me entertained, and Mr E Man has stocked the cupboards and fridge with soup, fruit, juice, and lots of different kinds of tea. I forgot to ask him to pick up some honey, though, and as it turns out, lemon tea with maple syrup is NOT going to be the Next Big Thing. Worth trying though!

I might even get caught up on my blog reading!

Posted in personal, virology | 21 Comments

Good week

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?
I met Nina on Tuesday!
She’s in town on a family trip, and took some time out to meet up with me for some yummy pasta, local wine, decadent chocolate cake, a jazz band playing just for us, and a really fun conversation! As I know I’ve said before, meeting a blogger is like a first date with an old friend – you know some of their stories and personality, but have to ask basic questions like “so what exactly do you do?”! Anyway, I hope I’ve inspired Nina to meet up with some more bloggers who live just a leeeeetle bit closer to Freiburg!
And then, on Wednesday…
What’s this?
It’s part of a mega-cool stage set that barely fit into BC Place, that’s what it is:
But who’s it for?

U2!!!!!!

I’ve seen them before, and was very happy to see them again! I agree with some of the local reviews I’ve read; while I do like the new album (MUCH more than the one before), I would have liked to hear more of their classics. But they have such an immense repertoire that they’re never going to be able to play everyone’s favourite songs, and all in all it was a great show. I would post my videos, but the camera is blatantly moving to the music in a rather embarrassing manner.

Hallowe’en party at the weekend! w00t!

Posted in blog buddies, music, photosos | 7 Comments