My New office!

Well some of you might have heard that for the last six months I have been commuting out to Surrey for work…..I have had driving experiences and sky train experiences that I have shared here…. even a few photo's that documented my moments…. but now that is all over! As of Monday February 13th my office will be downtown…. and it has not come soon enough!!!

The road has not been easy, I have been heading the project and moving an office of over 100 people, some that want to go and some that don't, is no small feat. I have a great team that has been working with me and we are now in the final week……

 I thought I would share some photo's of our new space… and my new views!!!

Harbor Center Tower, we are on the top floor!!

From my window on the left….. Baker nice and bright….

My main view when you walk into the office…..I am not sure I am going to get any work done! 

After this week I will be walking to work in the morning, 25 mins and that's even stoping for a coffee!!!

Now I love what I do …… and where I am doing it!!! 

The House of 1000 Mirrors

A poignant Japanese folktale that I thought I would share……….

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often." In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again." All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet? What kind of face to people see when they see you? When I was young I remember hearing "you get what you give". If we can give just a little bit of positive energy to the people we meet, the friends we have, the people we work with, will we get it back? I think so………and its starts with how we choose to live our lives…….. Till next time Happy Chatting……

Your Stuff, my stuff, and all the stuff we have had….

So I was recently in the Pacific Centre, a shopping mall here in Vancouver that has a number of stores…and usually too many people. I found myself standing outside a small news stand waiting for Dwight to check our lotto tickets and come back to tell me we were now multi millionaires.

Having had just purchased some Channel perfume I was basking in my wonderful new scent when I realized I was starring at a Zippo lighter sales rack, not sure if you knows these lighters but they usually have a variety of interesting designs…..I thought to myself…..I used to have one of those…a nice one too…. and I was sure I remembered buying Dwight one at some point…..and then the thought came….. could I even begin to remember all of the stuff I have owned? From lighters to cloths, from shoes to bags, dishes…pots…glasses…Jewellery - the list goes on!

The answer must be no….you can not possibly recall every item that you have ever owned, and so while I was admiring the devil skull design that seems to be popular with Zippo's these days I questioned what was it that I remembered? Was it the item or was it the memory I attached to it? Are all of our memories  able to be associated with an object that was a catalyst for the experience we are recalling?

Take my first trip to Paris…I have many fond memories but one it particular is of taking a river boat down the Seine and wearing a little black dress, a satin number, very nice actually! Or one of my first dates with Dwight…..and me spending time rationalizing the need for me to use jumper cables to connect batteries in my car to keep it going……

So if there are objects that help us link our memories to our experiences? Does this mean we have to keep them? As if by throwing them away we no longer have the memory….. if you are sentimental then you probably have basements and closets filled with items that remind you of moments….. a first kiss, getting married, the first time you met your lover. And what about people… we have photo's, we have charms, and we give personal gifts to make sure we are not forgotten and destroy them when we want to forget them!

And what of those in the world that use experiences alone to burn moments into their mind. Experiences that they can share with detail and passion from the memories they have created. Funny thing is that as I grow older I seem to want less stuff and more experiences…..I can only hope I have the faculties to keep all those memories……….

So we did not win the 50 million lotto max (my apologies to my family and friends) Dwight returned from the darkened corner with more tickets in hand, giving us the hope that wether its stuff we decide to buy or experiences choose to create - we would have the option either way!

Till next time…..happy chatting….

A multitude of wishes!!

From ours to yours……..

Language	Merry Christmas
Afrikaans	Gesëende Kersfees
Czech	Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish	Glædelig Jul
Esperanto	Gajan Kristnaskon
Finnish	Hyvää Joulua
French	Joyeux Noël
German	Froehliche Weihnachten
Greek	Kala Christouyenna
Hawaiian	Mele Kalikimaka
Hindi	Bada Din Mubarak Ho
Icelandic	Gledileg Jol
Irish	Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Italian	Buon Natale or Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese	Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Korean	Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latin	Natale hilare
Lithuanian	Linksmu Kaledu
Maori	Meri Kirihimete
Norwegian	God Jul
Polish	Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia
Portuguese	Feliz Natal
Russian	Srozhdestovm Kristovim
Spanish	Feliz Navidad
Swahili	Kuwa na Krismasi njema
Tagalog	Maligayang Pasko
Thai	Suksun Wan Christmas
Vietnamese	Chuc Mung Giang Sinh
Welsh	Nadolig Llawen

And of course lets not forget……..


Happy Festivus….. only if you remember the Festivus Seinfeld Christmas

The Grey Cup..actually some good football!

So I attended the Grey Cup this weekend...! I am not usually a huge CFL fan but I might just go to a few games next year......

The energy was fantastic, the game was actually pretty good, and of course BC won so that helped a lot! And of course we were with good friends, and that was wonderful!

I thought I would share a few pic's.....

And the halftime show........  

And of course the WIN!!!

Guilt, an interesting emotion.....

So I got on the sky train this morning to go to work and didn’t pay, yeah I know…. but I really did not have any choice. All of the ticket booths in the station were not working properly and were cash only, really in this day and age…. cash, seriously! So as I sit here the overwhelming feeling of guilt has made me start writing, so is it guilt for getting a free ride? Or is the fear of getting caught doing something wrong?

Let’s look at both – Guilt, we feel guilty when we eat something we know is bad for us, we feel guilty when we do something we know we shouldn’t do, we feel guilty when we say something we know we shouldn’t have said. So is guilt really just fear? We could say that we fear reprisal if we did all of the things above?

The two defined…(thanks Wikipedia!)

Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.

Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger.

So the above is obviously not all encompassing and by no means have I intended to explain the two emotions in great detail…but threat of danger…these sky train cops are pretty scary!

What do I say, well I know that I worried for the entire ride to work this morning that one of those burly police officers were going to come onto the train and ask me for my ticket! I didn’t even have an old one that I could show them! J

What would I do? What would I say? What if they take me to jail!? Ok so they are not that mean…. but I have seen them pull people off the train! Oh the anxiety!

So to answer the question, my guilt quickly turned to fear, fear of getting caught doing something I know is wrong. So why the fear now and not the guilt, because its  something I feel that I can completely justify.  And I did…Besides Translink makes enough money, people do it all the time, I pay everyday, and never take free rides, just this once because their machines didn’t work?

So justified my guilt, turning into fear of reprisal and began to wait….4 stops left, 3 stops left, 1 stop left….I am almost there…..

So how did my adventure end, well I made it! Still feeling like I did something wrong, so from guilt to fear, to guilt again… enough to motivate me to go buy a full fare ticket……and pay for the free ride that in the end I just couldn’t take!

Till next time happy chatting!

Just Listen

I dont normally post these kind of things but every time I listen to this song I just cant get over how great it is.....and if you listen closely to it you will see how true it is.......the photos are just for fun!

Its called, Coming Home - a new band called Mt Desolation....if you get a chance pick up the album.....its one of the best new bands I have heard in a long time.......hope you enjoy!

http://www.mtdesolation.com/2010/10/19/album-out-now/