Why oh Why? (Or my getting old rant)

I am very much enjoying the portability of having a new lap top. Right now I am flipping channels while I am on the internet. Sadly my channel switching stopped when I got to MTV and watched the show called I think My Sweet Sixteen or something like that. Watching made me feel like going on a rant.


Picture the following words coming out of my mouth:

The show follows a fifteen year old girl (or maybe boy? this is the first time I have watched a whole episode) who is turning 16 and planning an extravagant party. This show deeply disturbed me. It followed a very spoiled girl who spent extravagant amounts of money on her party. It showed her auditioning very muscular boys to carry her into the party by asking them to take their shirts off because they would be wearing tiny togas and she wanted to see how muscular their chests were. The end of the party included her father (who was wearing a very skimpy toga with no shirt underneath, UGH!) staging a photo op by having a new convertible pull up while everyone was waiting outside.

The MTV culture of today that teenagers are so fond of distresses me (I experienced this teaching juniour high last year; there are students who are not like this but many of them are). The girl in this particular show had such a sense of entitlement about how her party should be and that she should get a car because "OMG" she's turning 16 and cried when her friend flirted with her boyfriend or when her friends hated her dress. I realize that this of course not totally her fault, she has been taught to feel entitled by her parents and culture today. The focus today on beauty and money and weight instead of the way we treat people or having a desire to learn or thinking globally is such a sad shift. I am going on a "getting old" rant but our consumeristic, celebrity obsessed culture makes me think about what sort of culture my children will grow up with and it scares me somtimes because I feel like things can't get much worse. Yes I realize parents have said this for centuries but this time I feel like it's actually true. :)

Okay I will stop now. Just my thoughts for today. Amber also had a great post about American Idol and how mean spirited and humiliating it has become.

On a similar lighter note . . .

Today in the span of 5 minutes I witnessed two separate incidents of parents driving their children on their paper route. I was dropping off something for a friend and she wasn't home so I was writing a note when I saw a car inching its way down the street. I glanced up a couple minutes later and realized that it was a father driving his son doing his paper route. The son would walk behind and take the papers out of the trunk and then get back in for a ride to the next house (he did not do this every time but I did see him do it) and then get out at the next house. I could not believe it. I dropped off my note and got back in my car and turned ONE corner and got stuck behind another very slow car. I quickly realized that this time it was a mother who was following her son. He did not get in the car for a ride but was getting papers out of the backseat. It was NOT cold here today - about +2 but I guess it was too cold for some.

I'm done my rant. Have a great weekend!

Recent Happenings

Yesterday between posting about my new guilty pleasure (I am listening to it right now!) I also made dinner for our local WHL team. Our pastor is the chaplain for the team and twice a month they meet and have a dinner. I volunteered to make the dinner this month. I had a lot of fun putting the meal together but was quite worried that I would not make enough. (Who knows how much 20 hungry teenagers eat?) I did make enough (apparently there was some even left over!) I think this is my new calling in life - I have recently discovered cooking now that I have a lot of time on my hands and made the best ever potato skins last night after making my big meal. They were great to eat while we watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I love these two! They make me laugh. Okay I am getting sidetracked again, here are some pictures of my very large meal I prepared yesterday.

This is me using a rolling pin to crush the Skor Bar that went into the trifle I made for dessert.



Here is the spaghetti and meatball casseroles I made. I used a recipe that Marc invented when we were home in Lethbridge in November. It includes lots of veggies, meatballs, and of course LOTS OF CHEESE!
Lastly, we have a new computer!! Here it is in all its glory. Monique do you notice what's on the screen? Have a great day everyone.

What's your guilty pleasure?

Marc and I decided to only stuff eachother's stockings for Christmas because we are buying a new laptop before we move to Kenya. (It arrived today, I'm sure you will be seeing pictures of it soon, I haven't opened it yet I am waiting until Marc gets home from work.) Anyways my main stocking present was the DOUBLE CD edition of the Monster Ballads collection. I have been having so much fun listening to this double set as I clean the house, drive the car, make dinner, you name it - I enjoy listening to this bad boy while I do it.

I am not sure what it is about Power Ballads but they massage some happy spot in my brain. Maybe it's the thought of extreme bad boys in love, maybe it's their hair that blows in the wind in their videos, the nice major chords the chorus usually involves, the curly bushy bangs (this is what I'm aspiring to right now) or the power guitar that is softened for these ballads but I LOVE THEM!!!!!!! I will leave you with some pictures of my fave (hee hee) bands on the CD because who can resist early 90's hair?





Okay, now the point of this post - this is my guilty pleasure, what's yours?

Even Better!

If you wouldn't be surprised by seeing photos of us hugging trees and the like, Fraser would you be surprised to see us being birthed by a tree?

sometimes there is a damp cold

walking niko by the fraser river. the thermometer says -4 but it feels like -15. we used to make fun of those "but its a damp cold!" westcoasters; they are right sometimes. we're still happy it's not -40.

can you spot the eagles?

power struggles

we had a substantial snowfall recently following a day of crazy winds and hail here in chilliwack. here is a shot from our hike by harrison on wednesday:

and here are some pics from our hike on thursday.




now to the reason for this post. there are more windmills popping up around pincher creek every time i drive by (about once a year). there are now at least 1000 windmills in over a dozen windfarms between pincher and fort macleod. although some locals complain about the change to their horizon (and it is a substantial change in places) seeing these generators in action helps me believe that we will one day be able to wean ourselves from fossil fuels and build a more sustainable society. these pictures were taken on the way back from xcountry skiing in the crowsnest pass.


another hopeful sign is the recent advances in solar panel technology. around a year ago solar panels made a huge leap in efficiency, doubling the amount of power that could be produced with a given surface area. this advance not only decreases the size of arrays and the materials needed to produce them, it also makes solar windows or solar roof panels a much more attractive investment for the average homeowner with an average sized roof.
this year a company called heliovolt developed a method of "printing" photovoltaic cells directly onto construction materials like glass, steel and plastic. this thin film voltaic should be widely available in 2008 and has the potential to revolutionize power production.

imagine if a city passed a law that any new office or industrial building had to cover a certain percentage of their southern frontage with photovoltaic cells? or even just issued tax credits for retrofitting existing buildings? the amount of renewable energy produced would quickly become a large fraction of our total energy usage.

unfortunately governments have a history of making decisions based on politics, lobby groups and lack of foresight, so i'm not holding my breath. however, as this technology becomes cheaper it will become more attainable and more attractive to the average consumer. i believe that the only way we can actually change our energy sources is by working as individuals rather than waiting on govt policy. with fuel prices rising and technology prices falling i am hoping for a convergence of mutual benefit for the entrepreneurs and consumers.

an early case in point here involves the ill fated electric car. kylie and i recently watched the entertaining documentary who killed the electric car? which makes a compelling case that GM deliberately sabotaged their own line of electric cars b/c they worked too well and threatened the viability of their other car lines. it even gets in a few jabs at the republicans who torpedo an initiative to provide tax credits to electric car buyers in favor of providing tax credits for hummers... thats right, hummers.

anyways, back to my point... if govt and the larger car manufacturers can't be trusted to act in our best interest then perhaps economics can point us in the right direction. aaron and i were discussing this after our drive back past the windmills. if a product or service is in demand but not being supplied this encourages the creation of small independant start ups to fill niche markets. enter tesla motors, an independant car company that recently unveiled its showpiece product, an electric sports car that does 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds, makes almost no noise and comes with all the standard amenities. with existing battery technology it already has a range of over 250 miles. add in more efficient batteries and a roof covered in photovoltaic cells and you have a dream vehicle from both the pleasure and environmental standpoint. at $100,000 US this particular model is a bit impractical for the average consumer (plus they're sold out) but the company has plans to expand their line once they have some capital flow. its a start anyways.
so i suppose my recent thoughts can be summed up by saying i have hope for the future but consumers will have to stop trusting in government and industry and start taking matters into their own hands. when citizens start producing their own power then govt will have to follow or lose theirs.

For those of you waiting with baited breath ...

Well we have returned from Princeton and have spent a very nice day with our friend Jarrid. Jarrid and I allowing the crazy windstorm we are having right now to dictate our poses.


Yesterday on our way back we stopped in Manning Park and rented some snowshoes. It was my first time REAL snowshoeing (I'm sure those short trips in elementary phys-ed don't count) and it was so enjoyable! Especially the downhill bits.






We had a great time in Princeton and Marc's time was fairly relaxed and not too busy which was very nice. My whole time was very relaxed and not too busy. I did made some excellent smartie cookies with whole wheat bread flour because I couldn't find the regular flour and they turned out so big and tasty! Here's the dough:

Here I am holdly our newly aquired French Press. My mom got it for Marc for Christmas and we love it! We are taking it to Kenya for our daily coffee fix. We didn't realize (or at least I didn't realize) that we could make tea in too! My dad bought us some excellent strawberry cream rooibos for Christmas and we enjoyed it aplenty in Princeton.



Marc tobganning.


For those of you wondering how we heard crazy sounds in the night, I will tell you. First I must start this story by saying there are a lot of remotes in this house where we stayed. None of the remotes have batteries and none of them work on any of the stereo systems, DVD players, TV or VCR. They are located in the living room right beside the TV. Here they all are in all their batteryless glory.

The first night Marc and I were there we had just watched a movie and we had turned out the lights heading for bed. I was at the bottom of the stairs right by the outside door and Marc was upstairs. As I was just about to come upstairs, I heard music all of a sudden. I strained my ears to hear where it was coming from and it sounded to me like it was coming from outside. I called Marc downstairs and at this point I could hear a man and a woman talking quite loudly outside. I was quite freaked out at this point wondering what the HECK was going on. Marc and I opened the door and in the darkness we heard a phone ringing very loudly. We then heard a doorbell ringing three times. "Did you ring the doorbell Marc?" (I couldn't see his hands.) "No did you?" No. At this point if it was a movie I would have screamed. We finally figured out that in our random turning on of machines we had somehow turned a DVD on outside and not inside and it was playing on the speakers mounted outside. A very weird experience. I was very happy when I figured out what it was. Occam's razor should have told me that it was not a crazy evil machine in the night spewing out random sounds and conversations but I was still scared!

On a last note we played Scrabble and after a very poor start I stepped it up with 75 points for the word quizzed. From then on it was Kylie dominance all the way. This is not something I would usually brag about ;) but you must understand that Marc ALWAYS beats me at word games. Victory for Kylie is a day to celebrate. Here is my precious board:

I just re-read this and when I read the part about none of the remotes working I could picture some of you (ahem, Fraser) making some smart ass coment such as "Of course the remotes don't work, they don't have batteries." I will save you from embarassment - we did try batteries in all the remotes and NONE of them worked.
The End.

We have A Camera!

Marc and I are in Princeton right now while he does a call weekend so the doctor here can go on a quick weekend vacation. Last time we were in Princeton our camera stopped working and we took it into a nameless Canadian retailer (think large store with a focus not on the past but on the . . . ) where we had a warranty. We took it in on November 2 and were told that it would be 3-6 weeks before it was fixed. I phoned right before Christmas and was very rudely told that THEY would phone me when my camera was done and that of course EVERYONE wants their camera before Christmas but sometimes it just isn't possible.

Marc phone this week and was told that, "Yes 10 weeks is a very long time for your camera to be away, we will look into that and phone you on Wednesday."
Wednesday: No call.
Thursday: No call.

We decided to go into the store on Friday. Marc was ready to be indignant and ready to demand a new camera. (Actually he really wanted to do this, he is a weird boy and likes to argue.) He told our story and right when he was about to get indignant, we were told that we could purchase a camera of equivalent value and keep it until our camera came back and then return said camera for a full refund. WHY did they not tell us this before Christmas!!!! Anyways we have a "new" camera and I just need to figure out how to upload pictures onto this computer and soon you will see some.



Here's a preview list to whet your picture appetite. Pictures of Princeton to come:
1. Rooibos tea (And an explanation of how rooibos is made. I know many people are not fully capable of using google themselves so for all you who are googly inept I will soon help)
2.Pictures of Niko in the snow
3. Toboganning!
4. A very weird story involving loud doorbells, phones and talking coming from the outdoors in the middle of the night! Dun dun dun.....