Do people think?

 
 
I was driving home tonight and this was what I saw. Sorry that the picture is a bit blurry, since the picture was taken with my cell phone camera and I don't have the camera phone that Dayna has. If you can't quite see what it is, let me tell you that it is a dog with one of its front paws on the mirror and 3/4 of its body outside of the truck; and we were clipping along at 80km/h (about 50mph). All it would have taken was a little bump on the road. Do people think? 

3 outta 16 ain't bad

Check out how many feet are actually touching the ground...

The next few days might see me taking a flexible lunch break... say around 9am? okay, a few at 1, which isn't as bad.

Go Brazil Go!

YEEEAAAAHHHHH Ronaldo!

back by popular demand

We went to a Karaoke party last night... but it was the snack that was back by popular demand, not the singers :) Karl is, actually, the King of Karaoke... thanks to these parties Scott has been throwing, he now wants "Karaoke Revolution" on XBox... (there were more dance moves than these pictures illustrate, just couldn't quite catch them!)


"Apples of Joy"
Originally posted December 15, 2004... Reposted by request :)
Well, I am a bit sheepish to give away this secret recipe... because it is so simple! I named it after the lady who shared the recipe with me, Joy (Dirks), after I practically used her serving dish as my own portion at the party she served it at.

But here it is:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
250 gm cream cheese
Smuckers or Hersheys butterscotch syrup (usually in can)
Skor pieces (these are in baking section with choc. chips)
Crisp Granny Smith Apples

Soften cream cheese and beat in the brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Spread into a shallow bowl. Spread some syrup on top of cheese mixture. Sprinkle Skor pieces on top. (You will not require the entire bag or the entire can of syrup). Core and slice apples and surround mixture with pieces. Granny Smith work well because the sour balances the sweetness of the dip... but as a party guest said recently, the apples are just a vehicle for getting the dip to the mouth, so it doesn't really matter! Double the recipe for larger crowds (I used 6 apples with a double recipe).
For best results, dip should not be refrigerated for more than a few hours.
A variation of this recipe is to skip the butterscotch syrup, blend cream cheese with a full cup of brown sugar, and top with nuts.

Caution! May cause sticky fingers! Enjoy!
DC

summer storms...

Tell me, please, is Calgary the only place in the universe where the sun happily shines on freshly hail torn flowers? Welcome to summer in Calgary!

DC

Happy Birthday to *me*

Our freshly mowed lawn... I just got the cover on to our brand new lawn mower as I was listening to the thunder roll, and no sooner did I get the deck door closed and it started to pour down rain (and a bit of hail).

No, I did not get a new lawn mower for my birthday!

I took this photo with my birthday present, a new Sony Ericsson K750i camera phone!

I'm so spoiled! Thanks honey!

More on the Hong Kong/China trip

I was doing some catching up with friend and family, and I emailed a friend who lived in China for a brief period (three months, I think). She asked me how did I like our tour. It makes me think about our trip again, but now it has been a couple of months, I think I was articulating it a little differently than a couple of months ago. Here is part of my reply to my friend's email:

... I saw your pictures at Nanjing Road in Shanghai; Dayna and I were totally there! Too cool! I was born in Hong Kong, and it was the first time I was back... more than a bit of nostalgic. Dayna loved it... as a place travel destination. Well, me too actually. I would not want to live there, but I would definitely like to go back for another visit. China was cool too. I had been there before, but it was 20 years ago. It was quite different back then. It is a lot more modern now, both in terms of physical things and people's attitude. Although, Dayna almost caused few traffic accident because people were staring while riding their mopeds. I suspect you probably had similar experiences? ...

more fried food

Fried Cheesecake? Yup. Now I've had all food groups fried (dessert is a food group in my world!).

Hurricane Schmurricane

Alberto is heading our way... but hopefully it will stay down in Florida for a while! Otherwise Joel will have to teach me all his Sudoku tricks (this kid's a genius).

Coding Tidbits

No, lucky you don't get to (or have to) see my boring techy blog posts here. I have been wanting a place to blog my learnings on my job as a software developer. However, this blog is just not the right forum for that; so I created a new blog. With the exception of a few people, I don't imagine you would be interested in it. For those of you who are interested, it is here at http://codingtidbits.blogspot.com.

Dodge Ball

Joel and Alisha and I were playing Dodge ball in the living room before supper (Melissa loves me for this). We played with these "splash balls" that you are supposed to use in the pool... at least we left them dry! What more could you ask? Anyway, Joel won. 

kentucky fried...everything

So, we found a place in Lexington that did "authentic Kentucky" (and an authentic Kentucky lady offered to have us over to her house and she was going to cook for us... complete stranger. So sweet) this is the amount of food that was left on my plate AFTER I was full. Seriously, the servings were SO huge, two entire fried chicken breasts, fried apple fritters, fried corn fritters, fried hush puppies (corn meal), fried corn bread, fried green tomatoes, and that white stuff? Yeah... that's gravy. White chicken gravy. ewwww. 

Wilmore, KY

Mary Nanninga
2006
Wilmore, Kentucky

 

Twin Flower

 

Happy Birthday to me :-)

Yes, it is my birthday indeed. Like many other birthdays I had, I spent this one quietly. The day was just any other day at the office, but neither Ed or Scott were in the office. So it was kind of quiet. My mom called me some time in the morning and invited me over for some "lamburgers". That's right, burgers made of lamb - Yummy! Some of you are probably gagging now, but hey, it's my birthday, so I get to eat whatever I want. Speaking of food, Dayna tried durian the other day, you will have to get her to tell you what she thinks.

For presents, I got the traditional "Red Envelope" from my parents; have not cracked it open yet, but I am sure there is cash in there. I also got this cool Ferrari (wish I can stop the sentence right here) -branded digital weather station from Dayna, the Parks, and the Forsyth's (Thanks!) It's got a separate piece that gets put outside the house, and it radios back the outside temperature, humidity and pressure back to the mother ship. It even forcasts the weather for the next 12 hours and tells me whether I should use my dry, slick, or rain tires! No, I don't have three sets of tires, but it is cool nonetheless, isn't it? There are other cool presents like a 1:64 scale remote-control mini Hummer (it's an oxymoron isn't it?); so if the Oilers get sunk before Dayna gets home, I will have something to play with to occupy my otherwise hockey-watching time. Anyway, that's a whole other blog post altogether. I hope the Oilers will put their act together and bring home the Stanley Cup. That said, before I digress too much, I'd better wrap it up.

Happy Birthday Karl

Happy 34th Birthday Honey!

I thought this was an appropriate image to "send" from Kentucky to wish you a Happy Happy Birthday...

Love you lots! Hope it's great, wish we were together.

24" goodness

It's a happy day for me today because my new 24" widescreen monitor arrived. I was contemplating between two 20" monitors or one 24" widescreen, and obviously I settled on the 24". It is because it will also double as Dayna's and my movie watching screen. We have a 20" television, but all DVDs that we can rent now are in widescreen format. So in a not-so-selfish move, I decided that the 24" is going to give us more value. At any rate, I can't wait till Dayna comes home so we can enjoy a movie on it... now we just need a new DVD player that doesn't skip on new discs.

So, I am traveling quite a bit for work these days, and I feel the need to bring back some kind of souvenir from each of the places I go. Between January 06 and January 07, I will have been in: Vancouver (3x), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hang zhou, Edmonton (2x), Toronto (2x), Kitchener (2x), London (2x), Stouffville (2x), Kentucky, Charlotte NC, Myrtle Beach SC, Chicago, Colorado, Abbotsford (2x), Kelowna (2x), Grande Prairie, Saskatoon (2x), Regina, Winnipeg (2x), Lethbridge, SanDiego, and California.

I can think of a few things that I don't want to collect, but I am having a hard time keeping up with what I do want to collect because they are big and breakable.

I have collected quite a few rings from different places I have been, maybe I could keep that up. Magnets and keychains: too cheesy. Art: too expensive. Maybe I should just take pictures and pick my favourite and have it printed and framed. I still want to get a map and pin it with all of the places Karl and I have been (and want to go...) so the pictures could go around the map somehow.

Informal poll: what do you think I should collect? What do you collect?

jetset...

Home sweet home for 2 days; then

Kentucky, here I come...

then North Carolina, South Carolina, and home sweet home again!