Andrew Underwood

Home for hollidays

My car can still drive all the way from Edmonton to the Crowsnest Pass on a single tank of gas without burning any oil. Actually, I checked the oil before the trip, and then after and it had more oil than when I left. Turns out my Dad put some in, but now it’s very full. Mostly I’ve been sleeping in but I’ve also been playing guitar, playing with the dog, organizing and rating all the photos on my computer, and working on transfering some of my old blogger posts. My parents still keep my worms in their basement. I got them back in 2001 as a composting idea for my university residence. Now it’s almost 2006 so that means that it’s housed about 5 generations of worms. They ate all the original bedding so I cut up a bunch of newspaper for them to devour. I think the worm population is porportional to the amount of space they have to live in and if I started splitting them up and making new bins I could have an army of red wigglers to sell. But I don’t think my parents would like that so much, to have their basement covered in worm bins. I’ll also be trying to clean up/work on my car with my Dad’s help so I can take advantage of a warm garage chalk full of tools and jacks and whatnot.

As for plans for the next few days, I’ll be in the Pass for new years and will likely head up to Edmonton about the 5th or so. University doesn’t start until the 9th, so I have some spare time. Yay!

Merry Christmas

I’m still in Edmonton at the moment but I’ll be driving to the Pass tomorrow. My sister has been staying with me the last few days and we have been visiting family up here. Last night we went to our Uncle Neil’s house for supper. This is all the Underwood grandchildren, from left to right, Tracy, Sarah, Andrew (me), Connor (bottom), and Cleo (only one to have eyes closed).

Tonight we are going to my Uncle Iain’s for Christmas supper.

New home

Now I’m all set up on my new server, which will give me way more freedom than my old home on the university’s server. I’ve got hosting on Dreamhost now. If you are looking for hosting check these guys out. It’s really full featured and you get a free domain registration with any hosting package. If you decide to get hosting with them use promo code 1618a to get $50 bucks off. They have this refferal program where if you buy hosting from them because of me they will pay me $97. I can choose to allocate some of that money ($50 in this case) to my own promotion code for you. So I’ll get $47 in the end.

Anyhoo, I’m sure you have noticed that I have a new design with different blogging software. Wordpress is what I’m using now instead of Blogger. I was unsucessful in importing all my old Blogger posts so I’m going to have to do it manually. However, this will give me the opportunity to categorize all of them.

Laundry

I’ve spend $9 doing 3 loads of laundry today in my appartment. Quite often the dryer doesn’t get things quite dry, but I’ve discovered something. If you care to be bothered to go back to the dryer half way through it’s cycle, open it up and clean the lint trap. This lets the air move through better and won’t be impeded by a half full lint trap for the second half of the cycle. Tada! Dry underwear!

In other news, I ordered a pizza to take over to Allan’s birthday party the other day from Pizza Hut. They don’t make my favorite pizza but Brianne wanted to order some so I decided to go in with her (coupon code 11 is 2 mediums with 3 toppings for $22 btw). So 45 mins after ordering it still hadn’t come. We phoned, got disconnected x2. Phoned again, turns out that we were supposed to get a confirmation phone call, which we never got. Pizza confirmed from this phone call. 30 min later I was in a rush to leave so we were waiting in our foyer, still no pizza. Phoned again, yelling entails. Everytime we phone there is about 10 mins of being on hold. We get through, apparently the pizza guy couldn’t phone us to let us know the pizza was here because Brianne’s number was long dist. Even though we told him to meet us in the foyer, where we were waiting. So an hour later we are on the phone again, yelling, they give us 20% off. 45 mins after that, still no pizza. We phone back and tell them that we are fed up with waiting and will go pick up the pizzas ourselfs. We hop in my car, and begin driving to the nearest pizza hut which is about 3 blocks away. En route we get a phone call on brianne’s long dist cell to tell us that they are ready. In the end we got them for free, yay! yay? Still I will never order from Pizza Hut again. By this time I thought I was super late for Allan’s party, so I went there super fast with pizza in hand only to discover that no one was there (well there was but Allan wasn’t answering his phone, not really surprising [I experince about a 10% successs rate in contacting Allan]), so I went home and just ate the pizza myself and watched the movie “Never Cry Wolf”. Later I got a phone call from Kyla saying that everyone should be there by 10:15 or so. So later I went over and had a great time. It was a gong show night but ended up really well.

Last day of class

Yesterday was the much celebrated last day of class. Allan, Ben and Adam came over for some BBQed hamburgers. We played bomberman while they were cooking, such a classic game. Anyhoo, now I have to buckle down and study for finals, I have two on Monday.

Monday

It was really really cold in our apartment for the last week or so. About 14 degrees all the time, except when the sun came in. We had ideas of placing rocks in the sun to collect the heat in the day so it would be released at night. We were wearing our dressing gowns all the time, sleeping in them with sweaters. This morning I woke up because I was too cold, and I almost never wake up for anything. We also had a dilemma because we couldn’t get the land lady to fix it because we have the puppy which we are not sure if we are allowed to have here. I didn’t know if it was just our apartment or if it was the land lady trying to save on heating costs. Our thermostat did nothing, I thought it was just a decoration to trick us into thinking that we actually commanded the temperature. In any case, tonight I took it upon myself to see if I could fix it myself. After taking off the register panel, wiping away a few thick layers of dust, I found two loose wires in the rats nest. Not knowing how this worked I took a chance and touched the wires together. There was a spark. Seconds later, gurgling. The hot water was flowing! I rigged it together and was so glad that tomorrow I’ll get to wake up pleasantly.

This morning it was cold in our place, but I still had to go to school. First class - 9:00am - I am never there on time. Since I woke up early from being cold I was ahead of schedule and was delighted at the fact that I was going to have a leisurely bike ride to university and have time to spare before class started. It was cold outside, as you can imagine an Edmonton winter. I gear up, trudge outside through the new snow, get to my bike only to discover I couldn’t open my bike lock because it was frozen shut. I had some lock de-icer upstairs in my room… somewhere. Never having had to use it before I didn’t really know where it was. “Should I cut my losses and just start walking?” I thought to myself. No. I went to look for the lock de-icer, and tore my room apart in the process. After finally finding it, I used it, set my bike free and I was on my way.

The trip was quite perilous as the snow impeded my bikes natural movements. My front wheel slipped out twice on my way resulting in a couple of near -suretobecomical- face plants. I was riding hard enough that the cold air caused my asthma to flare up, worse than it has ever been in recent memory. Arriving in class late, I sat though a lecture on linear algebra (which incidentally isn’t so linear anymore) wheezing away like some old man. The wheezing was really loud and my focus was keeping it minimized. This passed by the end of the class. After that I had two more lectures to attend and an assignment to do. Being really tired it really, really sucked doing that assignment, it’s a good thing it was the last one for that class.

Anyways, positive thoughts, positive thoughts.

Wintersleep - Sore

I’d just like to take a moment to point out this music video that is hauntingly good. In an acoustic, knife stabbing sort of way… Canadain band Wintersleep: Wintersleep - Sore

It’s Farmer’s Market Day

I often go to the farmer’s market on Saturday, since it’s just two blocks away. However, it’s not often that I buy anything. One thing is for sure, the idea that you can get cheaper produce at a farmer’s market than a supermarket has long since perished. Also, this farmer’s market is more like a mosh pit than a leisurely walk through the country. The aisles are packed full of the urban elite. These are the people who make enough money to live in a good neighborhood but instead choose to live in the low income housing that composes Strathcona county. They choose to spend their money at the small restaurant and quaint book stores that glow in the landmark landscape of Whyte Ave. Walking through the long clotted aisles feels like you’re in molasses desperately trying to flow, but being held back by the build up of people along the sides, tasting samples and buying their perogies.

With all this you must wonder why I even bother to venture those two blocks, on my sleep in day. I go for one reason, and one reason only, the samples the experience. Seeing all the hand made crafts, the weird people, the interesting foods make the experience. The fruits and vegetables there taste way better that what you find at the supermarket. Supermarket produce is grown to withstand thousands of kilometers of travel, and are often picked prior to being ripe. The farmer’s market produce usually has a way better taste, but also doesn’t last as long. That bucket of berries you bought better be eaten the same day, or the next day you might have a bucket of mold berries. However, as far as I can tell, there is no guarantee that what is sold there is organic or even any different from what the supermarket is selling. In conclusion, taste samples before you buy, and be ready for anything. ‘Cause last time I was there I was interviewed on camera for a documentary, but that’s another story.

In the spirit of keeping blogs up to date, here’s this hour’s update

I’m entering this year’s Birkebeiner, a 55k classic cross country ski race. My Dad will be entering again in the new special wooden ski category. I haven’t raced for a few years so, also I’ve never gone that far at once before. I have two pairs of skis up here in Edmonton and am just waiting for the snow to fall.

Mostly I’m seeing this as a race to live, as I must make it to the end alive. Freezing Canadian temperatures, wild moose, and crazed cow bell wielding spectators are all hardships I’ll have to face to keep from expiring before I reach the 55km line. Imagine pressing on through bitter wind as you pass frosted corpses of your fellow racers. Then realizing their frozen, stone like faces probably don’t look too different from your own. Your only sense of dimension comes from the “swoosh, swoosh” sound the front of your ski tips make as you break trail through the white out blizzard. Yes, if I can keep from being one of hundreds to perish along the course every year, I’ll not complain.