http://luisa.org Luisa Perrella's Web Log Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:51:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ah, well, the day has come. I knew it would, just thought I had a little longer. It seems I am the shortest person in my family. Ronnie has surpassed me. I refused to believe it at first, but perhaps I should resign myself to it. We noticed during ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/08/shorty I've been working at Bell for a little over a year now (well, except for 3 months off), but no more. Lots of turmoil as they restructure, and most contracts were ended. They were more than fair to me, giving me a month notice. Very nice group of people and ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/08/off-work I didn't know that 2 words could convey so much! Here are the only two words that an 18 year old male uses with his family: 1. Meh 2. Grunt Hmmm. Maybe the second one isn't really a word. It's just a sound and can vary a bit depending on time of day. ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/06/18-year-olds-2-word-vocabulary It was my dad's 82nd birthday last weekend, so we headed down to Thorold for a visit. I don't think my dad really cares about his birthday, but it's a good excuse for a visit. He says he never expected to live this long. His parents didn't make it to ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/05/dads-birthday-and-university-admissions Reid took Ronnie tobogganing one weekend at our local hill, just a walk away. Reid took tons of pictures, which was great when you want to capture wipe outs: Smiles all the way down. But these are my favourite, particularly the last one: http://luisa.org/archives/2008/03/toboganning Cilantro (fresh coriander) is evil. It should be wiped off the face of the earth. Horrid stuff, I can't understand why anyone on the planet would want to actually ingest the stuff. I first came across it eating at a Thai restaurant. Although I had eaten Thai food before, I ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/03/evil-cilantro Well, it's MOSTLY done. We still have some unpacking to do, and I believe it'll take us quite a long time to get everything back to where it belongs. But Reid's been back in the basement for a while now and most of our shelving is back up. What takes ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/02/basement-reno-done For posterity's sake, I thought I would record the painstaking (painTstaking!) process of getting the basement painted. I didn't record the DAYS it took to fill in holes and gaps, to sand, and fix some electrical anomalies (I didn't do the electrical, of course). That was most of last week. ... http://luisa.org/archives/2008/01/paintstaking The basement renovation is proceeding well. It's taking a little longer than I expected, and I hate drywall dust, but I shouldn't really complain. Of the renovations I've had in the past, this is the least amount of dust I've had to deal with. But I still hate it. I ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/12/basement-pictures-and-tonsils Having not posted anything since April (Yikes!), I thought it would be best to provide a catching up post: Work I was working at Bell for the last year, but my contract has come to an end. They have a policy of not keeping contractors for more than 1 year. It's been ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/12/catching-up-2 Today is Michael’s birthday… 17 today. Good lord. I can still see him in my mind as my little baby. I can see him now. I can’t seem to link the two of them together as the same person. How did he get to be so big, so fast? Reid ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/04/michael%e2%80%99s-17th-birthday I thought I’d wrap up the review with a list of things I did and didn’t like about the cruise. It might be useful to some, although I’m sure ‘regular’ folk would have a different take on it than nerdy folks like us. [Well, *I’m* not nerdy. It’s just the ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/04/part-last-of-norwegian-cruise-lines-western-caribbean-review Thursday – Third port of call: Belize City, Belize At Belize, the ship does not dock, but rather drops anchor in the ocean. We could take boats to Belize city, but we opted for excursions. Reid was going scuba diving, and the boys and I planned to go to ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/04/part-4-of-norwegian-cruise-lines-western-caribbean-review Tuesday - First port of call: Costa Maya, Mexico First thing in the morning, the four of us headed off on our first NCL excursion: to view some Mayan Ruins. Ronnie is very much into the Mayan culture. The trip there took about an hour on a bus – which ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/04/part-3-of-norwegian-cruise-lines-western-caribbean-review Norwegian Sun As mentioned in part 1, some of these posts may be too detailed for most to be interested in. I'm writing it for personal reasons, and also attempting to make it a review with details others might find helpful if they're taking the same cruise. Sunday - Boarding ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/04/part-2-of-norwegian-cruise-lines-western-caribbean-review During March break, we were away on vacation... cruising via Norwegian Cruise Lines, on the Norwegian Sun to the "Western Caribbean" out of New Orleans. On the whole, I'd say I probably won't do a cruise again (at least, not to the Caribbean), although I can see how most people ... http://luisa.org/archives/2007/03/cruisin-for-a-bruisin When we bought our LCD TV last Christmas, we temporarily placed it on an old piece of Ikea shelving we had, thinking we'd buy a nice stand for it. But that turned out to be impossible. We wanted the stand to fit most of our media equipment, including the stereo ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/12/tv-stand My time off has come to an end as I start working again this week. I've been hired on contract, working at Bell. It'll be nice to be working again (although, of course, being off was nice while it lasted.) I suppose I officially started on Tuesday this week, but ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/11/working-again Michael has had to write a program for his computer class. Basically, it had to throw up a menu and ask the user how many items they would like to order. It would then calculate the amount owing, allow the user to enter the amount of money, and calculate the ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/11/try-again-retard I went out yesterday morning (Monday), wanting to buy a pumpkin. But they're all gone!!!! I drove to about 4 stores, and then this morning tried 2 more on the advice of some friends. Still, no pumpkins!! Gee, I don't remember hearing about pumpkin shortages in years gone by. Ah ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/10/where-have-all-the-pumpkins-gone My brother, Tony, bought a cottage up north recently. I’m very excited for he and his wife, Val: I think they’ve always dreamed of having one and now it’s reality! Tony looked to save money by picking a fixer-upper. The cottage is actually quite lovely – the bigger projects seem ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/10/thanksgiving-at-the-cottage A few weeks ago, a relative of mine from Brazil contacted and visited my parents. My mother called me during his visit and put him on the phone: Rafael Perrella, is the grandson of my dad's cousin in Brazil. (Actually, his grandmother is my dad's cousin, but his grandfather is ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/09/rafael Finished my projects (a few weeks ago, actually). Didn't post because we didn't have pictures! I finished the mirror and hung it. My brother looked at it and said something about stripping the paint to see the wood, which made my day, because it's all paint. I just tried to ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/09/projects-done Went up into the attic yesterday. Did I mention I HATE going into the attic? I discovered that the guys who insulated for us last year did a really nice job. Which I partially ruined. They even caulked the attic access door shut, which I had to cut open. I ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/08/water-leak-mystery-solved Well, I finally got started on my summer projects. I have a few pictures, but not many. I'll update this once Reid is back from California with our camera! Project 1. I replaced two sets of steps leading from the deck. I based the design on the steps Tony helped us ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/08/summer-projects-have-begun Better late than never, here are the highlights of our watergun party this year (took place a few weekends ago). The Friday evening before the party, it just POURED. Have to admit, I got a little grumpy. Earlier weather reports promised a sunny day. So, that morning, I put a large ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/08/watergun-party-2006 Boy, it sure is hot today! A few posts ago, I actually said... "This June’s been far too cold for my taste. Bring on the hot summer days! " Hmf. Well, maybe I can take that back. 36 degrees, without the humidex, is too hot, even for me. This morning, ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/08/hot Spent most of the day today at the hospital with my dad, who had angioplasty to fix a number of blockages in veins surrounding his heart. He came through fine, although it was a harrowing experience for him. He’s had a history of angina, although he hadn’t had symptoms for years. ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/07/dad%e2%80%99s-angioplasty After 2 years working for Rogers in Toronto, my last day will be June 30. It'll be sad for me, as I found it a great place to work, but I've turned it into something positive by deciding to take the summer off. We found out some time ago that the ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/06/last-days-at-work Interesting conversations with Michael last week … he’s learning programming at school now, Visual Basic. He told us of his first program. Basically, just putting up a text field and a button. The conversation went something like this…. Michael:“The program is too hard to read. The lines go way off to ... http://luisa.org/archives/2006/03/michaels-first-days-of-programming