Birthday Recap

Here's a quickie before I hit the books...

- birthday was a study day (bummer), but that meant I got to sleep in and wear my comfy pants and favorite hoody all day
- a birthday phone call from my Great Aunt Norrine
- birthday bouquets, one from Mom and Dad, an exotic mix that included star-gazers (my favorite since Andrea bought me them for my sweet sixteenth) and one from Mark, a fall colors mix of red and yellow, roses, lilies, sun flowers and daisies
- 2 birthday mentions on other blogs
- 2 happy birthday comments on my blog
- 2 birthday cards in the mail
- a hockey game, where the Flames lost. Jerks. I have to keep telling myself it is pre-season so it doesn't matter

I think there might be more birthday greetings on my work email, but I left my laptop at the office for my study day. Which just means that I get to stretch out my birthday an extra few days.

Because Huey told me too.

Okay, so I haven't blogged in what might feel like ages. That's due to the following:
Sunday: Dinner at the Mervyn's in honor of my birthday. A delicious roast and a "Grand Slam" Cake. Mom, I am totally making this at Christmas. Elisabeth, this recipe is in "The Best of the Best." You should totally try it.
Monday: Taleen came over and we had Thai takeout, and indulged in a guilty pleasure - the season premier of "7th Heaven." Yes, I love that show. And I am not going to apologize or feel ashamed, so bite me. Everybody has something mindless that they enjoy, maybe mindless violent video games, mindless reality TV. I choose a mindless show that is sweet and idealistic, and I stand by that choice.
Tuesday: My birthday Surprise from Mark. Why three days early, you ask? Well, I suppose because I really couldn't expect Paul Simon to change the date of his concert just for me. OMG it was such a great show. How can he have such a fabulous voice at the age of sixty-five? I enjoyed the concert so, so, so much.
Wednesday: The Hewitt-Mercer Second Annual Texas Hold 'em Tournament in support of the United Way. I didn't play, but I helped out with registration and then ate pizza and watched the action. It was good fun. Some very intense play, and some very surprising twists.
Today: I was supposed to go to rugby practice, but I skipped to study. And now I am blogging. Because Huey ordered me to. But now I am going to go and make good on the studying, because I am weeks behind, and it's been four days since I cracked a book.
Later Gators.

Free Hockey Tickets!!!

Woooo! Today at work I won a draw for a pair of hockey tickets. I guess they don't bother taking clients to the pre-season. But the best part? It's to the game on my BIRTHDAY and it's against Calgary! How amazing and perfect is that? Woooo! I can't wait. I think it has been about 15 years since I last went to an NHL game.

Those Flames better win on my birthday.

Actuarial Analysis

Huey: As per your answers we first deduct $80,000 for student loans leaving 1.5 million dollars. For your analysis, I have selected an assumed rate of return of 5.0% which is reasonable, and in the neighborhood of the rates recommended by the CIA for approximating annuity purchase rates. I have also used the Uninsured Pensioner mortality 1994 Table, with projection to 2015, which is again based on the CIA annuity proxy. Based on these assumptions, the immediate life annuity factor for a 25 year old female is 19.1605. Dividing the $1.5 million lump-sum by this factor yields an annual income of $78,286. Not too shabby. Taking the million dollar figure from her answer to question # 2, we get an annual income of $52,190. So we can surmise that Huey's implicit expected mortgage payment is around $26,000.

Elisabeth: I might have to again deduct credit for your vague answer; your lengthy description of all the fun immediate things you would do, left me having to make additional assumptions in my analysis. In the actuarial world, the fewer assumptions, the better, as our assumptions are never born out exactly in practice, and lead to various actuarial gains and losses (ie: us being kind of wrong). At any rate, suppose that of your $10 million you put $2 million aside in a separate "slush fund" to be accessed at any time to buy toys and take vacations. If you put the remaining amount into an ING savings account (if you ever do win $10 million I highly recommend engaging an investment consultant - last year my standard life RRSPs made like 14%), at 3.25%, the life annuity factor for you would be 26.0714, so you would have a yearly income of $306,850. You're right. You are greedy.

Note that if Elisabeth and Huey both won the same amount of money($1.5 million): at 5%, Huey had a yearly income of $78,286, but at 3.25%, Elisabeth would only get $38,326. Amazing what a difference that measly little 1.75% makes. Not to mention that Elisabeth is slightly older than Huey (yes, your annuity factors are calculated using your exact birthdays - only the finest actuarial calculations for my friends), so her $38,000 is expected to be paid for a shorter time.

Wow, I can't believe I did all that work stuff, just now, especially since I came home sick at noon today. You would think I'd have avoided this. But Huey blogged while she was sick, and I did have a fairly substantial nap this aft and am feeling somewhat better.

I hope that the skies are less grey where you all are. Vancouver style fall has asserted itself today.

Bye now.

This Week's Quiz

First of all, the scores from last week's quiz. Huey and my Mom get full credit for answering (feta and velveeta, respectively). Bonus credit awarded to my mom for reminding me of the "edible oil product" category of cheese, and my own affection for Cheese Whiz. Elisabeth gets partial credit. Although she responded, her answer was more a description of her cheese-related shopping habits, rather than a fast commitment to consuming a single cheese for the rest of one's life. But thank you to all those who participated, and gave me motivation to think up another interesting quiz. This week, it is all about money, and there are three parts*.

1. What is the minimum amount of money you could win today, that you believe would allow you to quit working, and not perform another day of paid work for the rest of your life?

2. If your windfall from question one included a house, mortgage-free, how would your answer change?

3. If the house were in a small prairie town, say, Kipling, Saskatchewan, would you take it, just to be able to stop working? Or would you rather continue working so that you could live elsewhere?

*If you include with your response the interest rate you think you could earn on your winnings, and your current age, I will provide you with an actuarial analysis of your answer.

Heather vs. Fashion

Fashion 1, Heather 0

*sarcasm warning*

I don't know about anybody else, but I am just so thrilled that the big fashion trend for this fall is tucked-in shirts and pants that sit at the "natural waist." I think it is so awesome. I mean, the fact that my "natural" waist is about 2 inches below my breasts makes tucking in a shirt positively delightful. Oh and the little wee belts that I am supposed to cinch around my "waist" are abolutey the most delightful accessory in years.

*seriously*

I tried on a pair of "natural" waist pants tonight, and tucked in a shirt, because I thought it would be funny to see what it looked like. And it was funny, in that "omg I look like a sausage and I am going to go home and cry into a pint of ice cream" kind of way. A very stylish sausage though. No denying that.

If anybody sees a pair of low-rise jeans with 2% spandex in 'em anywhere, please let me know. In the meantime, I am going to see how many days in a row I can wear my sweatpants.

Okay, bye now.

Monday Quiz

I think I will try to add a weekly feature to my blog in the form of a fun question to ponder. This week's quiz question came to me while I was making a delicious omlette for dinner, with tomatoe, mushrooms and feta.

If you could only have one kind of cheese for the rest of your life, what kind would it be?

My three finalists for this question were brie, feta and sharp english cheddar. I think when pressed, I would ultimately choose the cheddar. It's probably the most versatile. But it has to be sharp, old english cheddar. None of that rubbery orange American junk.

Ciao!

iPod, iTunes, iRun

I am so happy to have my new toy, my sweet little 2GB iPod Nano. I swear I will probably only use it when I go running, but that will make it worth every penny. I enjoy running ten times more when I have the right music to keep me motivated. So far I have loaded 67 songs from 5 old mix CD's that I made years ago to take running with my clunky discman, which seems to be pretty much dead. So I loaded up the iPod, put it on shuffle, and hit the pavement. These are the tracks it served up:
1. Whiskey in the Jar - Metallica Version
2. Dizzy up the Girl - Goo Goo Dolls
3. Authority Song - John Mellancamp (Actually, I think that one is from his "Cougar" days)
4. Drug, Drug, Druggy - Manic Street Preachers
5. Spaceman - Bif Naked
6. Dreams - The Cranberries
7. Some dance track from Dance Mix 90-something. I think it is called "No Limit"
8. I want you - Savage Garden
9. Mr. Jones - Counting Crows
10. Everytime you Go - The Tragically Hip
11. Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden
12. If I were you - Kasey Chambers
13. Hello Time Bomb - Matthew Good Band

This list make me laugh. You can't say I have narrow tastes in music. I'm all about classic rock, banger metal, 90's pop, techno dance mixes, Welsh punk, Australian folk, modern metal bands covering Gaelic traditional. There are 54 other songs in my running folder on the iPod. I can't wait to hear what combination of tunes I get on Tuesday.

So, I have good stories from my run. First of all, I wasn't going to go, because it was raining when I got back from library. But while I was talking to my Mom on the phone, she told me to get off my butt and go anyway. Then by the time I was finished talking to the folks, it wasn't raining anymore. I left about ten past seven, and it was so nice out. Warm, but fresh from the earlier rain. I ran down Beach Ave, taking the "upper" path the second beach. Then I turned right and towards lost lagoon. I went around the lagoon sticking to the path close to the water's edge, until an enormous flock of geese seemed very uninclined to vacate the path, and instead continued to move towards me in a rather menacing fashion. I decided to avoid the confrontation, and ran up the slope to the higher path. As I was returning the second beach, I encountered two bicycles thrown on the path carelessly. Accident? Mugging? No, a family of raccoons and two stupid, stupid people feeding them and videotaping all their rabid adorableness. I wasn't terribly inclined to run past the garbage eating pests and risk frightening them, so I once again went off road, although this time I felt less conciliatory about it. I mean seriously. We don't feed the wildlife, people. They become dependent, and become even bigger pests than they already are. And yes, some of them do carry rabies. Idiots. I ran around second beach pool, and noted that the viz in the bay seemed pretty good (ever since I learned to SCUBA dive, I always check out the visibility when I am on the seawall). Spent the last stretch of my run with a full view of my apartment, which is always sort of fun. I was having such a good time that I ran a bit past our place, until I turned back and up the little hill back to beach ave. I counted 7 ships in the harbour and then had to wait and excruciating long time for the pedestrian light to change so I could make my way home to a hot shower.

Back to the library tomorrow. The good news is that I have only one chapter left to read in the textbook I hate the most, "Fundamentals of Private Pensions - 8th edition." Then it is on to the much more interesting "Private Pensions in Industrialized Countries."
I'm serious. It is way more interesting. Did you know that Chile has one of the most developed pension systems in the world?

Good night, and good luck!

Free Frap!

Right place, right time.
I have a study day today, but I went out to my office building at noon for my gym's Friday Ball/Core class, which I love and refuse to miss. And on the way home stopped at Safeway to pick up some extra things for dinner later. While I was returning to the produce section because I forgot lemons, a nice girl stopped me and asked if I would like a free green tea frappucino. They are putting a Starbucks counter into our Safeway and today was a training day for the new staff. So they are practicing making beverages all day and then handing them out free. Yay! I've never had the green tea frap. It is not bad, but I think when I have to pay my own money for a treat, I will stick to the sweet, sweet buzz of caffeine. I feel a bit guilty that I probably undid all the good from my core class with this sweet and creamy concoction, but really. I am not the type to turn down free food. :)

I went to Safeway to get some extra things I needed to make Greek Turkey Pitas tonight for me and Mark. At the beginning of summer I bought some pre-made turkey burgers (learn from my error children, never do this - make your own with plain ground turkey and your personal blend of seasoning), which essentially are simply salt flavoured. I have discovered I can get most of the salt out by boiling the things before grilling, but once the salt is gone, they just taste like slightly less salty rubber. So tonight I am going to try, boiling them, then slicing them into thin strips and serving with cucumber, tomatoe, red pepper, garlic, squeeze of lemon, olive oil, oregano, and mushrooms on pita bread. I am pretty excited about dinner. I love making up creative and slightly special dinners. Something different and fun. (I know mushrooms are not a typical Greek offering, but Mark and I both love mushrooms and tend to put them in just about everything we possibly can).

I should go now and get back to the books, but I might try and make today a double blog day, cuz I have an extra hour scheduled later to play on the computer, so that I can set up my new iPod!! So exciting. I am so happy that I will have tunes again when I run. I cant wait.

'til next time Sweeties!

I should be studying...

Okay, so this is probably the worst possible time for us to have bought a computer and got connected to the internet. Seriously, since I only have about 1499 pages of reading to do over the next 8 weeks or so, giving myself yet another way to screw the pooch seemed like a great idea. So here I am spinning my words into cyberspace instead of cramming “Major Considerations for the Implementation of Registered Pension Plans in Canada,” or some other such crap.

For those of you who have been coaching me on purchasing a computer, hu*cough*ey, I thought I would throw in some of the impressive details of our recent big purchase. Mark and I are now the proud owners of an adorable 17 inch iMac computer which has the following impressive features: 1.83 GHz intel core duo processor, 1.5 GB of RAM (expanded from the standard 512 MB), 160 GB hard drive, handy-dandy iSight camera and many other great features. And the truly impressive thing? I almost totally understood all the things I just wrote - I didn't just read it off the box. :)

In truth I must confess that I have had this computer for about two weeks and been hooked up with Shaw for about 10 days, and yet haven't gotten off my butt and started this blog, which will be a sacrilege to my "Blog Buddy" foursome out there. You know who you are. I find my style of procrastinating really interesting. Suppose I have something that would be worthwhile to get done - housework, go for a run, start a blog, call a friend or relative - I will often decide," no, I have to study," and opt not to do something. But...I still won't study. I will stare into space, pick up a novel I've read 10 times, wander around the house, open the fridge (thinking to myself that the fridge needs a good cleaning, but insisting that I can't because I have to study)...etc. So NEITHER studying, nor one of my useful tasks get done. Strange, eh?

Anyhow, now I have a blog. A place to share my a ruminations with friends, family and whoever should stumble across this page. Thank you to those who are taking the time to read, and lots of love to those I miss far away. Cheers.

P.S. Why does the spell checker not recognize the word "blog"?