All things old

So this is a bit of a hodge-podge post compiled of a bunch of little things that I have just consumed from my couch in the past hour and bare with me, there is a common link.

Randomness #1

So Who Do You Think You Are?

This was originally a BBC series, which I believe continues to air over the UK, and was adopted a few years ago by the CBC and now (finally) has come to America! What is it? Well, it is a weekly program that traces the family history of celebrities. What's cool is not that these people are celebrities but rather how fascinating genealogy is and how much you really don't know anything about where you come from until you have the opportunity to dig in to the family gene pool and story vault. Tonight was the introductory episode of the U.S. version and Sarah Jessica Parker's mother's maternal line was featured (btw, her mother is adorable). SJP's family did not disappoint, her lineage had quite the story to tell from the California gold rush to the witch trails of Salem! Nerds likes me get a kick out of these kind of shows and I can't wait until I can start my genealogy search! This leads me to the next bit of randomness.

Randomness #2

So 10 years ago I started looking into my dad's parental family as I already knew a few things about them which included the name of the first Rivard to set foot in Canada from France, Nicolas Rivard. I ended up with a fair amount of information and was even able to trace the family back by two generations into France! Fastforward 10 years to this past December and I found the old word doc I had created 10 years earlier (happily not corrupted!) and started to Google the French ancestors and the places they were born and was thrilled with what I found! First, there is a plaque in a French village noting Nicolas and his new world compatriot's baptisms in France. Then with the help of Google maps, I was able to get an idea of where exactly in France my peeps were from! As I was doing all this searching one random night in December I was getting so excited and suggested/told Mike that if we get over to France again, I want to travel all to these villages and see if I can find out even more about these people, like my own Who Do You Think You Are!

Randomness #3

While cruising through PerezHilton.com - you know you all read it too! - I came across this super cool moving picture! It is from 1903 and is the first ever Alice in Wonderland movie! The British Film Institute Archive found the old reel and although it was badly degraded through the wonders of technology have been able to restore it. It can make for a long 9.5 minutes but it is very cool to see what they were able to do with movie making technology 107 years ago!!!!

Check out:





So the common link? All these things are old. That's it, that's all.

Anyways, bon weekend!

PS - Mike received some great news today! He's been named the Administrative Professional of the Year for his wing command! Yay! Congrats babe! xoxoxoxo

O Canada!

So we may not have "Own(ed) the Podium" BUT on the penultimate day of the Vancouver Olympics, we, Canada, do have the most GOLD MEDALS of any country (!!!) and provided Germany doesn't catch up tomorrow, we will have established the record number of gold medals won by a host country in a Winter Olympics! And even if we walk away with 25 or 26 medals total (Dear God/Yahew/Budda/Allah/Vishnu/Krishna, please let us win tomorrow!!!!!!), we still did a fantastic job and we should be immensely proud of our athletes, the cities of Vancouver, Whistler and Richmond and VANOC.

Oh, and Dear International Media - in particular The Times (London) - SUCK IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially you, The Times, you've been nothing but miserable, rude, pathetic gits these past two weeks, and well sorry mates but we've now got 13 Golds and the world has said that they've had a great time in Van...so there...I only hope London goes as well because won't you have a lot of egg on your faces then.... :)

PS - To everyone else who isn't The Times, apologies for the aggression but they've really been mega jerks in their coverage and it was both against the spirit of the Olympics and the levelheadedness typically displayed by the paper - basically poor sportmanships and poor taste.

PSS - I DO realize that my ranting against them (nearly) lowers me to their level but you know what? Sometimes bullies need a taste of their own medicine!

The Devil Wore Blue

So in my new job I essentially get paid to read the news all day long….I’m responsible for other stuff too but mainly it’s about reading. Specifically, I get paid to read news and coverage on Cloud Computing – at times tedious and at times extremely interesting. One thing I’ve come to learn is that in the world of IT, social media is one of the fastest ways to find out about software problems, outages and hacks and the fastest of all social media outlets in this regard is Twitter.

I’ve never bought into Twitter, in fact I did and still do fundamentally disagree with it as there really is such a thing as over-sharing and quite frankly, why do people think that other people care that they’re going for lunch now/they’re back from lunch and had a pastrami sandwich/they’re now in a food coma at their desk but are stoked about Friday’s night concert/blah, blah, blah, blah…… And while I disagree with it I do recognize its benefits – it’s a fantastic and free way to promote products/issues/events/across-North-America-road-trips (a la Alex and Luke :)) and in the world of IT it is a valuable resource for finding out about customer issues before they get through to a helpdesk and in the world of PR it allows you to get on top of an issue (hopefully) before it blows up. So this is all to say, I’ve had to sign up for Twitter and now have a bloody account. I only follow people for work – mainly IT gurus and wanna-be gurus and of course, Alex and Luke – who, by the way, accepted our invitation to stay with us if they find themselves in the Seattle area (I hope they do!) and who will be on CityTV in TO!

Anyways, I keep reminding myself that I’m not really on twitter, I’m just obliged to stalk people online for my job. And that’s ok.

Word of the Day

Panoply

1.a wide-ranging and impressive array or display: the dazzling panoply of the maharaja's procession; the panoply of European history.

2.a complete suit of armor.

3.a protective covering.

4.full ceremonial attire or paraphernalia; special dress and equipment.

It's origin date backs to Greece around 1570 - 1580 and can be used as an adjective: panoplied or unpanoplied.

I came across this word today in my daily coverage reading on cloud computing - gripping stuff I tell you!

Here's the line:

"In the world of software development today there is a broad panoply of software development models."

When I first read the word I thought perhaps it was IT related so I checked on dictionary.com and then realized how clever it was to use it in this context because it both fits and it's a word that you almost never see. Well played Brad Smith, well played.

Ok, nerd out!

Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremonies are FINALLY being aired here in the United States...now that it's 10pm....when in fact the opening ceremonies began 4 hours ago! What the F NBC?!!!!!! Seriously, why the hell did I have to sit through 4 hours of local news and endless promotion of other NBC programming and way way too much yabbering by a plethora of hosts and commentators when the open ceremonies were in fact going on live?!? Pathetic NBC, pathetic. I would have watch it online on CTV's website however non-Canadian IP addresses were blocked. Anyways, while this was incredibly annoying, it's not really important when compared to the death of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili - how truly heartbreaking. And his poor family and team members. We watched the Georgian team enter into BC Place and I nearly lost it; I thought they were very brave and that it was very touching that they received a standing ovation as well as having the opening ceremony dedicated to their fallen teammate.

Switching gears, Canada just entered the stadium (3 hours after the fact...) and I really like the retro/classic look The Bay went with for these games. The toques en mass looked fabulous! Anyways, the cultural part of the show has begun so I'll sign off for now but before I do, who wants to play a little game of I-spy? Did anyone else see Princess Anne in the crowd when Great Britain entered the stadium? I did!

PS - I went to work today in my Canada Olympic sweatshirt, t-shirt and mittens (yes, the mittens too, my emails today were completely incomprehensible but that's ok, it was for a good cause...) and this jerk on my team started shouting Canada sucks and that we're going down in hockey - I told him to not to crow too loudly because humble pie has a nasty after taste! Jackass!

PSS - This cultural part is awesome - the technology is beautiful! And now Sarah McLaughlin is singing! Yay!

1 More Sleep!

I went to Van this past Saturday to run errands and do some shopping and there was a buzz, kind of like in the lead up to Christmas. People were decked out in Olympic gear and lots of cars were flying Canadian flags. Tomorrow I will be going work decked out in my Olympic gear and with a flag from my car!

I'm excited. I may even get brave enough to go open next weekend to check it out...maybe...we'll see how heinous the crowds are...

Anyways, this year is our year! I hope all the athletes from every country have a wonderful experience but I hope they don't mind if we keep most of the medals! :) GO CANADA GO!

PS - A little update on the US Speed Skating Team - Stephen Colbert and the Colbert nation have done it - they raised $300,000 for the team! And it has had quite the impact - check out this article.

Free Valentine's card!

I just came across this gorgeous blog - Ruffled - a wedding blog that posted photos from people's unbelievably stunning vintage themed weddings. Check out, the photos are so beautiful, it'll make you sick.

It's on this website that you'll find this very pretty and free pdf for a Valentine's Day card.





Enjoy!