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“I am so impressed with the potential you see in me.”
- Michael Scott (The Office)

Okay so maybe I’m doing something different today. People usually don’t talk to me.

I’m wearing jeans and a black shirt – nothing different there.
Maybe it’s my hair… I put my hair up in a messy bun. Random red braids are shooting out in all directions. I don’t usually walk outside with my hair like this.
Maybe it makes me look more approachable?

So I’m still in SecondCup. I came indoors though because I needed to be connected to an electrical outlet.

“Hi there, I’m wondering if you can help me”
Another elderly gentleman – let’s call him Donald – was walking towards me with papers in his hand. He takes a chair and pulls it up beside me and sits down. (so cute!)

He explains to me that he booked a ticket online but only this (he shows me the papers) prints out.
Turns out, the travel company sent his tickets/confirmation as an attachment.
So I ask him what email he uses – yahoo- and I log into my yahoo account and send an email to myself to show him how to access and print the attachments.

It was fun. I like how he pulled up the chair and sat down.
Heh.

I’m thinking about setting up a booth here during the weekends – “Free Computer Advise, TIPS welcome.”
I could sit here and do my work in-between clients.

Oh – I was speaking with someone the other day and apparently there are segway-type lawnmowers. I couldn’t believe it!! I’m now seriously considering landscaping as a career. My only task would be to segway the lawns.
Love it.

(note: I wrote these next few entries during the weekend while my blog was down)

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My unofficial goal for this weekend was to spend as many daylight hours outside as possible.

I did have some work to do however, so I couldn’t just sit and read/craft in the park all day long. So the result was that I ended up spending a lot of time at coffee shops’ patios with my laptop.

I don’t usually consider sitting on a patio with my laptop. I mean, people are walking by all the time… what stops one from grabbing my laptop and sprinting down the street?
The computer isn’t tied to anything, and a metal fence separates the patio from the sidewalk, so if someone grabbed my laptop they could make a clean getaway while I struggle to get out of the patio area.

Anyways, I just couldn’t bring myself to sit indoors, so I set my cautions aside and enjoyed the sunshine with my laptop.

Nothing eventful happened during my stint on the Starbucks patio, so on Sunday I decided to visit the Second Cup patio by Davisville Station (have I mentioned the FREE WIRELESS at Davisville?).

I settled in fairly quickly and soon after I sat down, an elderly man sat down at the table beside mine and starting smoking a cigarette while coughing up a lung.

I was copying pictures from my camera while a steady stream of people walked down the street.

“Hi.”
A different elderly man was standing infront of me – let’s call him Bill.
Bill was standing outside of the patio area, and had started talking to me.
I took my earbuds out of my ears.

Bill: “– that I use. Is that a good computer?”
me: ‘yeah, it’s alright’
Bill: “what kind is it? Aker?”
me: “Acer, yup it-“
Bill: “I have a Macintosh. I’ve had it for a long time. It’s old but it still works. All that PC stuff goes right over my head.”

So we have a discussion about computers. Turns out Bill is 85 years old, and is going to buy a used Mac for $900 from some guy who sells computers. The $900 includes installation in Bill’s home, and the guy will show Bill how to use the applications he needs.
I told Bill that that sounds reasonable. (I feel like a used Mac would be around $700, and then the hours of installation and teaching would be another $200).

Eventually, the conversation ends:
“Thank you, you’ve made my day!”
We shake hands, and Bill walks off.
How cute was that!

30 seconds later:

“You’re popular! I was going to ask you a question too!”
That was the guy sitting at the table next to me – let’s call him Gary.

Gary is a retired pastor who got a computer degree in 1991. He used to do programming with DOS, but 6 months after he graduated, Microsoft launched Windows and his degree became obsolete. (brutal!)
So we reminisced about the old computers – DOS, Dot-matrix printers with the paper with the holes along the sides and pages that you had to rip apart. (those were the days!)

Turns out that Gary has a 7 year old daughter who wanted a computer and Gary ended up getting a new Dell computer (for free!), and he was asking me how to use it to send pictures to people.

He told me that he had a disk from Loblaws that has pictures on it, so we discussed sending the pictures via email.

He wondered about how my computer didn’t have any wires coming from it, and I described the internal battery and how his laptop has one as well. I showed him where the battery was on my computer and I think I blew his mind.

He asked me about connecting to the internet – someone had told him that sometimes there’s a password for wireless internet – and I explained password-protected networks. He asked how he would access them and I told him he would have to go into the Control Panel – he laughed.

In the end, we established that he had to turn the computer on to do anything. We were joking of course, but he took this away as one of the things that he got from the conversation.

It was cute.

I think I’m going to get a latte.

In classic SNRU fashion, here are some random things:

Finger Hooks:

(pics by Chloe)

okay, what do you think? too morbid?
I was chatting with some people about these during the weekend. I like them. And I think I don’t find them overly gross because they don’t look like my fingers. So it’s not like someone severed my fingers. …now if they came in a brownskin-coloured version, I’d probably be disturbed by them.

I’m glad I don’t have an iPhone
because I would probably buy ten cases from Ultra-Case.
Aren’t these fun!?!
I like the ridiculously sparkly ones. (and the wood ones, and the leather ones, and the ribbon ones, and the satin ones….)

From what I can tell, they’re around $20ish USD. That’s not too bad, I say.

this is funny

(via I Can Read)

speaking of hearts…
http://www.i-heart.org/
from the website: “I-HEART is a movement of people helping people - showing the love of God in practical ways, wherever need exists. Right here, real soon, you’ll find an online community with the sole purpose of offline action - sharing ideas, being inspired, shoulder to shoulder, part of the solution - transforming local initiatives into a collaborative global impact. But in the meantime, let’s take time to look beyond ourselves and truly see others…Their worth, their needs, their future. Because it’s together that we love… and think… and act. As one, I-HEART.”

until next time….

so my blog was offline for 2ish days. …Did anyone even notice? I bet I’m the only one!
I only blogged once last week.
what the dealio?
(one of the characters in the book I’m reading speaks like a 1980 gangster. It’s rubbing off on me.)

Anyways, this is my Welcome back to Blog-land entry!

mad chalk-drawing skills, eh?
(hah! )

the other day I was telling my mom about Toronto’s garbage strike.

I think I said something like this:

‘I’m only following the strike passively because I live in an apartment, so the strike wouldn’t affect my garbage collection. Now, if I lived in a house and the strike did affect my garbage collection I would be mighty upset. In fact, I would move to Montreal.’

well, hold on to your hats Quebec! Here I come!!!!

…I’m only kidding.

I was chatting with a coworker today and she made me realize that my garbage is indeed collected by the city.

I’m gonna have a problem.

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In other news, Toronto implemented a new policy related to plastic bags - I think it started at the beginning of June.
In order to encourage shoppers to use reusable shopping bags, all retailers are charging customers 5 cents/ plastic bag, if they require one.

I’m shocked!
I wonder what other large cities have done this.
I mean, I think it’s great, but I’m shocked that T.O could get this idea approved without major yelling and screaming from consumer groups.

or maybe this policy has been in the works for like 10 years and now it has finally come to fruition.

I wonder if there will be an evaluation of the policy in a couple years.
It’d be interesting to see if the policy affects consumer spending in any way.

As silly as it sounds, I feel like the policy has helped to curb my spending on impulse items.
For example, sometimes I stop off at the grocery store on the way home. A few times these past weeks I have thought of picking something up at the store but then realized that I left my reusable bag at home and figured I didn’t have enough space in my bag to carry extra items. And who wants to pay 5cents for a flimsy plastic bag?

It’s been a while since I did a Sunday Night Round-Up!

Here are a few things that I came across this week:

– This great concept for S&P shakers!
I love this!

genius!
This is by Antrepo Design (via The Dieline.com).
Check out the packaging:

“Rechargeable power for your dining table”

— a new message that will get everybody going green

heeheeheee
(via I Can Read)

— temptation…
I love this ring.

The “Forget me not” ring by Kiel Mead
(you can buy it here!)

– My Milk Toof
This site is great.
seriously. Click the link.
you won’t be disappointed.
or maybe you will. …i dunno.
(via Double Happiness)

— Patterns
Look what I ‘made’!

I think I’ll call it: “What Time is it?!!!”

It was done through Repper!
It’s fun!
(via Gala Darling)

— fun camera!
I stumbled across this blog entry by Holly @ Haus Maus
Check out this cute polaroid-type camera by Fujifilm!

[pic]
It makes business-size instant pictures.
cute!!!

— book clock
this clock is fun:

you can buy it here!
(via Doubletakes)

g’nite!

wait, hmm are they always having a sale?

I’m tempted…

[link]

It’s a chalkboard wall decal!!
love it!
[link]

Speaking of chalkboard paint…

Elsie from A Beautiful Mess made this new work desk:

I love love love it.
love.

here’s a link to a bigger picture.
(and here are more pics..)

So as I mentioned, I was in NH with the family this past weekend.
It was fun!

we went to my sis’ graduation.

Her house there was great! it reminded me of a farm house (big and red) and the backyard was a forest - literally.

We were staying in a lakefront cabin in a small town and it was raining all weekend. On Sunday, right before the the rain stopped, my mom and I went kayaking!
we just went across the lake but it was fun!
every so often I had the ‘giggles’ and became unstablized and gained a bit of water each time.
after many laughs I realized that I had quite a collection of water in my vessel! It was an interesting experience — sitting in the middle of the lake thinking “this could be a problem…”