Elisabeth's ordinary life

They found it noisy, dirty, rude, dangerous, crowded, indifferent.

Then we found a little garden terrasse sheltered from the street where
we could order lunch.

When I ordered my spaghetti alle vongole, I asked if the sauce was
bianco or rosso. "Rosso" the waiter replied. I don't like alle vongole
rosso because the tomato sauce hides the clams. I took a chance and
ordered it anyway.

Thank heavens I did. But then I should have known: I was in Napoli.

When the spaghetti arrived, it was white, sprinkled with lovely fresh
green herbs (basil? parsley? oregano?). The clams were casually
distributed around the plate: delicious, plump, perfectly opened.
There was a lovely pool of olive oil at the bottom of the plate.

As for the "rosso": there they were, lovely tomatoes, hidden in the al
dente spaghetti, lightly sauteed to perfection. I'm not usually a fan
of sauteed tomatoes but then, again, that was before I ate them in
Napoli.

When I finished every single one of those spaghetti (my mouth still
waters as I write this) and those clams and those
sauteed-to-perfection tomatoes, I stole some crust from the girls'
pizzas and sopped up every last bit of that lovely olive oil.

That plate of spaghetti was pretty much a religious experience. And
all this in an ordinary restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Napoli.

So this all you need to know about Napoli: it's a big, noisy, crazy,
wild city. Find a restaurant, any restaurant. Order something.
Anything. And eat.

And then you'll get Napoli.

"D" is also for drop shadows which I used for the first time on this digital layout.

Journaling reads:

"I hate dogs. I have ever since I was a kid. It probably had something to do with being bit by Danny’s dog when I was in Grade One. We were sliding down the hill behind the COF hall and when my sled bumped his, the dog ran towards me and bit me in the left thigh, right through my grey snow suit. I can still see his fangs biting into my leg. I can also still see the two red holes in my leg that took forever to heal.
Then there was the joy of being chased by dogs in the trailer park while delivering the hydro bills for Papa. (For some reason, that was always my job, not Remo's or Roberto's.) I might have actually enjoyed it, were it not for the dogs, who always barked at me and even chased me. It got so bad that, when Papa gave me a new pile of hydro bills to deliver, I would hand him back the bills for the trailers that had dogs. "Sorry, I don't do dogs." And yes, I knew them all by heart. Every single last one of them. Terror does that to you.
I am surrounded by family dogs: I photograph them, look for them when we think we have lost them and cook filet mignon for them.
But, to this day, I have no love for dogs, no desire to own one and barely tolerate them in my presence.
Except.
During the Lost Series finale, that damned dog goes and lies down beside Jack as he's dying, so that Jack won't have to die alone. What kind of faithful, loyal, damned animal does that? I must have watched that scene a dozen times. I sobbed pathetically each and every single time.
Damned dogs. I hate dogs. No, really, I do.
(Sniff. Don't look at me. I have something caught in my eye.)"

Me and dogs: it's just not ever happening. Unless they're on television.

(download)

Click here to download:

i-always-suspected-that-scrapbooking-made-me-smarter-now-i-know-kfqqhqCywaCEfbkDDwjr.zip (6.24 MB)

I've got two of them, and mine are real pretty. Mainly because I happen to have a "little" obsession with scrapbooking supplies.

I think I'm going to like this book.

It was fun to look back on how we used to do tomatoes, "back in the day". (Ha!)

And I still refuse to acknowledge that I am "behind". I still take my pictures on the 12th of each month. I'll get to the layouts...eventually.

Journaling reads: "With Paula, we did tomatoes in Mississauga at Remo & Kelly’s. We used Remo’s industrial tomato machine, propane stove and a pot big enough to bathe Madeleine and Samantha (separately!) Our process still included cutting and cooking, from which I got fired. Even Juliette helped with the stirring. Mickey joined Paula’s family after his journey from the dumpsters of Montreal. We didn’t finish all 14 bushels but after 80+ jars, we ended the day with a delicioous candlelight dinner of something smoked outside on the patio."

Credits: Paper -  Anna Aspnes Web Challenge 04/08 Solid Red (Designer Digitals); Fonts (big) Fette Egyptienne, Arial (journaling), Engravers (Date).

What a way to start a work day, eh?

And if you don't know who sings Hell's Bells...hang your head in shame.

A conversation between me and my DH:

DH: How was your day at work?

Me: Good. Really good. Great actually.

DH: Huh? What, did they fire you?

I'm thinking maybe I need to cut down on the whining. Or stop asking if I can "retire".

Yeah, that's it.

The Amazon Kindle did not ship to Canada in time for Christmas, even if you placed the order at the end of November, as my husband did. If you're an American you were in luck: shipping was 1-2 days and you didn't open an empty box under the tree like I did. (As of today this is still true per the screen shots below.)

Once again, Canadians are treated like second class citizens.

God forbid that Amazon do something like ship on a first-come first-served basis. Why be fair when you can discriminate against those nice Canadians who never complain?

Thank you Amazon! No, really! I love you! (NOT).

(download)

Click here to download:

thank-you-amazon-for-treating-canadian-customers-like-second-class-citizens-you-re-awesome-no-really-you-are-rmJGrbfuCijHwpdHhjbi.zip (179 KB)

I contested my speeding ticket. I won: because of engineering physics and project management. Sure, it took me two hearings and a whole day off of work. I don't care. I won. Here's how:

1. The measurement of speed is done using LIDAR technology. Yes, I do know what that is. Well sort of. But I did take Laser Physics in 4th year. That counts, right?
2. Because a LIDAR depends on a laser, it needs to be calibrated. Well, all instruments that take measurements need to be calibrated. Yep, we studied that in second year Eng Phys.
3. I found the manual (I LOVE the internet) for the hand-held instrument (that I had to guess was used to measure my speed) and read it. Guess what? The manual says that you need a minimum distance of 23 m when calibrating the instrument. Aww, look, the ticket says 21 m.
4. At my first hearing in July (yes, it took me two hearings) I showed up, I asked for a copy of the manual for the instrument that was actually used to measure my speed. That's called an Action Item. Project Managers live on Action Items.
5. For my second hearing (today), lo and behold, I had not received the manual. We Project Managers know that people don't do their Action Items without being nagged 45000x. Needless to say, I didn't nag the lawyer from the first hearing in July to send me the manual. Why should I?
6. When I showed up for the second hearing, all I had to say was "Where's the manual? Oh, you don't have it? Here's the one off of the internet which says you calibrated the instrument wrong. Care to prove me wrong?" And I blinded them with science. When the judge read the meeting minutes (ah, they have those) and confirmed that the prosecution had not done it's job, it wasn't right for them to ask me to come back for a third hearing.

And I was acquitted. Partly for being an annoying girl geek who reads LIDAR manuals. But mostly because, as a Project Manager I know that people never do their action items. Never.

As for the lawyer who rolled his eyes at me in July when I asked for the LIDAR manual, never roll your eyes at a girl geek. NEVER.

With Windows Live Essentials 2011, I finally decided enough was enough with Photoshop Elements (PSE) 5. Here are my reasons for making the switch to Windows Live Photo Gallery (WLPG) as my default photo organization software:

1. PSE's tags are not visible outside of PSE unless you "Write Properties to File". I had to add that step to my workflow. And, being human, I'd forget.
2. PSE's "Write Properties to File" messes up the tags: it appends new tags to old ones and doesn't write the hieararchy. Ugh.
3. It is impossible to access one PSE catalog from another computer on the network without super-human Windows networking powers. Which meant any work involving pictures had to be done on the Desktop, the same computer where the central iTunes library is. With two teens, 1 husband, and 5 iPods in the house, this meant I never got on the Desktop.
4. I hated importing pictures through PSE so I was already importing them through WLPG. Tagging them in PSE5 added another step to my workflow because then I had to import them first into PSE5. Two import steps? Does that make any sense?
5. Anytime I made a change to a photo, including deletions, outside of PSE, it would get all crabby and yell at me. ("Reconnect! Reconnect!")
6. Uploading to Flickr from PSE5 was slow and tedious. I can share directly to Facebook and Flickr from WLPG.
7. I was the only one using PSE5 Organizer: mainly because it is not intuitive, has a high learning curve and is very dictatorial. At some point, you need to ask yourself: why make things complicated?
8. Did I mention that WLPG is free?
9. It makes more sense use a software that is "built into" your operating system rather than a separate software that can die on you at any time.

An afternoon spent cleaning up the tags in WLPG and that was it. Now I can see my entire library of photos, tagged, from any computer on our home network.

Free at last!

I have no idea what's up with the city of Melbourne (Australia) but in honour of my cousin Lucy, who hails from this fair city, here is a short list of my favourite actors who happen to be born in Melbourne. Trust me, there were quite a few to choose from...what do they put in the water down under?

Anna Torv: Anna plays Olivia Dunham on Fringe, currently my #1 favourite TV show, which is where J.J. Abrams is hanging out since he finished with Lost. I love J.J., Fringe and, most importantly, Anna. She gloriously wonderfully super duper terrific. Especially this season. I can't say more...except that she is doing a great job playing a dual role. Oops.

Rachel Griffiths: I was shocked to learn that Rachel was Australian after hearing her speak on the DVD (extras) of the final season of Six Feet Under, one of the greatest series to ever play on television EVER. One of the things that made it so great? Rachel's portrayal of Brenda. You can hear her excellent rendition of an American accent (wait - aren't the Australians the ones with the accents?) on ABC's Brothers and Sisters. 

Emilie de Ravin: Emilie showed us all what she was made of in the last season of Lost where she had to play someone completely off of her rocker. She did such a great job that she creeped me out. When I look at her picture, I still shudder.

Eric Bana: Okay, I have a confession to make: I put Eric on this list because he's hot. The only movie of his that I've seen is Star Trek...and I didn't recognize him. Which I suppose is quite good thing for an actor, isn't it? (I loved Star Trek, especially since it came from J. J. Abrams, whom, in case you're wondering, I adore.) But Eric also starred in Munich, which my husband loved, and any actor good enough for Steven Spielberg is most certainly good enough for me.

And there you have it: a short list of actors born in Melbourne, all of whom have made it big outside of Australia.

Now, can someone please explain to me what the heck is this Austrialian TV show Neighbours????