Not that I've ever been one to talk about politics, but figured I'd share this so people know how I'd run my own country ;)

92% Mike Gravel
90% Dennis Kucinich
75% Chris Dodd
74% John Edwards
73% Bill Richardson
72% Joe Biden
71% Barack Obama
69% Hillary Clinton
34% Ron Paul
27% Rudy Giuliani
25% John McCain
22% Mike Huckabee
16% Mitt Romney
16% Tom Tancredo
11% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

The suspense is nearly killing me. Or it would be if I had a spare moment to notice.

Big big big things coming. Soon. I can spill the beans in a couple of weeks or so. And no, I'm not pregnant, since I know that's where your brains are going :P

~~~

In news of things that aren't in stealth mode, I dropped off the stuff I needed to submit hard copies of at UC Berkeley today. Eeee! They'd be crazy not to take me ;) The more I write about the things I want to do, the courses, my background, the professors there, the inspiring opportunities... the more it makes me excited about actually being there in the fall. Cross your fingers.. I have to get the last of the online stuff in this weekend, then it's a waiting game for 2-3 months.

Also, we launched Amnesty! Yep, that's our handiwork up live at www.amnesty.org right now. Chris and I did the theming (wireframes/design mockups -> Drupal theme). Try switching it to Arabic.. too cool.

The boys were out for a great visit over the holidays, which was actually a nice rest for us. Saw some good shows, ate good food, hung out. Yay!

We're off to a Drupal workshop in Portland all next week, so we'll be pretty afk. Oh, and I'm co-chairing the design/UX track at the upcoming Drupalcon 2008 in Boston. Feeling awesome things brewing...

T-minus one year (minus one day) til our wedding in Toronto. And one year since our city hall ceremony :) Happier every day that goes by...

Take a peek on the cams if ye dare! :)

We own wine glasses now! I find wine pretty even though I don't drink it. Meagan's mom was kind enough to send us a Pier 1 gift card for the help prepping at her house for the wedding, so we went on a little spree today :) Money's tight after our big Canada trip, so it was immensely pleasurable to grab a few neat things for the kitchen (ironically mostly wine related, plus a bowl and serving platter).

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this with certainty yet, but we're going to Barcelona from the 8th-24th of September. Civic Actions is holding our retreat there to coincide with DrupalCon, whee! So I'll be somewhere over the ocean on my birthday :P I asked Chris for one present this year... and that's to have a birthday party! I haven't had an actual birthday party since... well, I can't remember. I don't normally care much, but I'm going to be a quarter of a century and that's a good excuse for some celebrating. But I think it will have to be after we get back. There's a conflicting party on the 7th, and the weekend before is Labour Day (aka. Burning Man for most people around these here parts).

So yeah, life's pretty grand! Never thought I'd travel this much, but pretty exciting getting to see Europe for the first time. I hear Barcelona is quite lovely too.

Making good progress with the sites, prepping for the GRE (I'm going to take an online prep course... urg, too long since high school math), trying to squeeze in some extra working hours to up our income to a more sustainable level (we really didn't get in as many hours as we were hoping while in Toronto), new hamster mommy-ing, and and and... yeah, lots :)

I totally forgot to post this weird thing that happened while we were in Toronto. It was the night we were going to see Evil Dead: The Musical (which was a total riot btw... Nug, you rock!). We went into the city a bit early since I had to go to my original TD Canada Trust bank branch in order to set up so that my corporate Visa was visible through online banking. I had Chris and the boys drop me off so I could do that while they went to find a parking spot somewhere closer to the theatre, then we were going to call/text msg to meet up.

So I'm wrapping up with the guy in the bank, and I start getting out my phone and prepping to send Chris a message. And it doesn't turn on. Reboot. Nada. Battery out and in. Nothing. Dead. And I'd checked to make sure that it turned on when we got into the car at the beginning of the drive, so I'm not sure what the hell happened. Probably seeing the panicked look on my face, the guy asked if there was anything else he could do. I chuckled and asked, I don't suppose your phone will let me make a long distance call... and nope, of course not.

So here's the dilemma. Not only is my phone not working, but I can't turn it on to retrieve anyone's phone number. Yeah, I'm one of those people who doesn't actually remember anyone's number, just looks it up every time. I'm thinking I might be able to remember Chris's cell phone number if I had a few tries. But of course it's a California number.

Anyway, I ask him to direct me to a payphone, and he does... out the bank, around a corner, down some stairs, into a hallway, around a corner. Oy. I don't know how I even found it, but I did. So I'm standing there, freaking out a little since we're in the middle of a huge city with no idea where to connect with each other, I don't have a means of communication or even know anyone to call. I tried what I thought was Chris's cell phone number, and the payphone asked me to insert $5. Which I probably didn't actually have in change, plus I really didn't know if it was the right number. Sigh. Rummage through purse. Find cottage phone number! Which happens to be a Toronto number, since we set it up through VOIP. I call the cottage and am relieved when my dad's girlfriend answers, who then fetches my sister, who should have Chris's number and can call him free from the cottage. Right? No. She dropped her cell phone in the water in Cuba and now has a new phone that doesn't have the call log or stored numbers. So she calls her boyfriend to find Chris's number, somewhere. I'm standing there hyperventilating a little, but grateful that things will all work out... and I look up and Chris is tapping on the window glass right next to me.

WTF?

Apparently he had to pee. And he just so happened to wander over to the precise section of the Toronto underground, go down those stairs, turn that corner... JUST as I was standing there on the payphone that happened to be in front of the window.

I was flabbergasted.

He says it's Stephy Sense :)

I love him so much.

Boo to late nights and early morning meetings. At least the commute is short :) Despite our neighbour deciding to take up bongo practice about 15 minutes after I crawled into bed for a nap late this morning, I did manage to conk out on the couch for a while this evening. Lack of sleep and I really do not get along well.

Tried to take it easy today for our one day off, despite a to-do list that throws me into a panic every time I look at it. Chris and I have been brainstorming and project managing ourselves over the past couple of days in order to cut down on our stupid number of working hours lately. Bottom line is that we're loving working with CA, it's amazing clients and coworkers with much less hassle than doing it completely independently, and we're absolutely flooded with work from them. So we're going to focus on that rather than doing a ton of smaller one-off projects too. I keep saying yes to projects and realizing that I really don't have the time, or quite frankly the interest either :( I just want to help get us back onto our feet as quickly as possible, but what's the point in making us miserable along the way...

Trying to get loose ends tied up before the trip... so much more to think about than just going away for a few days. And why must the Tool concert on the 9th be in Hamilton rather than Toronto? Driving down two hours from the cottage is potentially tolerable, but another hour and a half to Hamilton is just miserable. Urg. And so expensive.

Oh and Zoe got shaved today. Teehee. I feel silly taking and posting photos of her every time she gets shaved, so you'll just have to check her out on the cams.

PS. Court and Spark is definitely taking a place in my list of top albums. Joni Mitchell rocks.

Whew, so much going on that I can hardly keep up. 

Things currently occupying my consciousness...

Well, I'm typing this on my new (used) MacBook.  I've had very little (almost no) time to do anything with it other than installing Firefox and some couch surfing.  So far I'm most impressed with the matte black finish  :)  Love the keyboard, although it's really going to take a while to get used to the keyboard shortcuts.  Looking forward to spending more time on it and really making it my own.

Trying to plan out scheduling and internet connectivity for some time at the cottage in Muskoka this summer.  Ah the joys of a portable job!  I think we're going to put Ubuntu on a small form factor PC for up there, and see how family and friends take to adopting Linux...

Oh yes, and voip!  That will be a fun experiment.  Trying to find a pay-as-you-go service with a call-in number in the 905 area code.

Starting to get going on my real vision for StG.TV, but not having a lot of time lately.  Various client sites in panic mode.  Chris and I have agreed that we will shift our hours so that I have a bit of extra time to focus on the project and grad school application stuff this year.

Ah and choir!  Our concerts this weekend went quite well... a couple of relatively minor goofs during the shows, but I'm really feeling a personal triumph.  I rocked my solo despite being petrified each time up until just a week before the concerts.  We're just about to get the recordings from March's concert, so I'm hoping May's won't be too far behind.

Ordered an evaporative cooler from NewEgg today to try and get some cooler air and humidity going in this place on roasty days.  

Going to a work retreat next weekend, and possibly London in June... and then Barcelona for a retreat and DrupalCon in September!

Can't remember if I actually posted about this, but we booked our wedding site for next year  :)  Casa Loma on November 15th!  Haven't really done much other than get that set, since all the dates up until then were already booked over a month ago, yeesh.

I still can't stop thinking about how beautiful Meagan was at the wedding.  I can't wait to see the professional photos.

Finally cleaned this messy loft up over the past few days.  It was so bad, my feet were always black from walking around inside.  That can't be good.  

Time to get Zoe shaved soon... I think she's uncomfortably warm some days.  I know I am  :P 

Uhmm... this post isn't nearly as interesting in real life as it sounded in my head  :)

Shopping for bras online, and I thought, you know, I haven't actually measured my boobs in years.  I have long felt that B-cups are actually a little big on me (particularly when they're the molded kind), and while I used to buy 36Bs since they're easier to find, even the bands on a 38 always seem to cut in too tightly.

So, the formula, for the uninitiated, is ribcage (underbust) measurement + 5" = band size, and fullest bust measurement (in an unlined bra) - band size = cup (A = 1", B = 2", etc.).   My ribcage is 35" + 5 = 40", and my bust = 39".  w.t.f.  So that makes me... a 40AA.  Does that even exist? 

But it's odd... because I (clearly) have breasts. I've seen girls with AA chests and, well, I only look like that if I'm lying flat on my back.  But... I've felt a good handful (hah) of boobs in my time, and I think that mine are some of the squishiest I've felt... so there might be something going on there in a lack of density as well.  

Anyway, just kinda weird so I'm throwing it out there... I'd never thought of myself as unusual in the breasts department, just sort of large-ribbed.  38Bs tend to work for me in unlined/unpadded bras, which is what I'm shopping for anyway, and I've never seen 38As before, although I'm sure there are all kinds of specialty shops.

Weird. 

So a reality of living in the US seems to be health insurance.  Now that we actually have income, we spent a good chunk of time researching options while we were away. 

Turns out that officially making us a partnership is a good thing, since we can apply as an employer which can mean lower rates and no need to worry about exams, pre-existing conditions, etc.

Keep in mind that our main goal is to insure us against major disasters and just pay for minor things out of pocket, and that we're healthy folks at this point.  So we have assessed our best option to be with Kaiser, at $330/mo for both of us.  That gets us a $1500 yearly deductible/out of pocket maximum (each) but doesn't cover much until the deductible is passed.  The only things it covers right away are yearly checkups and an eye exam.  Everything else is covered (with no co-pays or co-insurance) but subject to the deductible. 

That also includes a basic dental and vision plan, costing only $5 for a yearly dental exam/xrays (plus covering part of any major work), and a good portion of lenses/frames/contacts covered every two years.

Sound good?  This whole world of insurance is strange to me...