Belated Valentines Day...

It's a few days after Valentines Day and may people have been asking me what I did for the big Vday...to be quite honest I didn't do anything....now before you go and judge me saying that I'm a bad boyfriend let me tell you the whole story.

For the past 2 weeks I took Selene out to dinner for Winterlicious to 3 awesome restaurants....Far Niente, Pangaea, and the Rosewater Supper Club, the last dinner of which was on the Thursday before Vday....we had agreed that that was our "official" v-day dinner... If I could have I would have met Selene for a quiet nite in for V-day but unfortunately she had to work late until 10 pm at her client's office....so I didn't get to see her. But on Tuesday, when she told me she was getting off work around 8 pm, I zipped to her place after work and cooked her a surprise romantic dinner. Now I know you're saying that I can't cook but believe it or not, I've picked up some useful tricks as of late =). ..I'd like to think that I'm better than the average male of my species =) We had Tortellini with a red wine, tomato, zucchini meat sauce =)...it's not a $500 dinner but hey....it's not bad don't you think? Plus it was made with love.....

Judge me now, but do you still think I'm a bad bf? *wink*...plus isn't it better to be sweet and kind all the time instead of just on one day that Hallmark created to get men off their lazy asses?

To everyone, Happy Belated Valentines Day and hope you got to spend it with loved ones.

End of Hockey =(...but hey I have 24!!

So I sat in my office listening to Gary Bettman address the hockey nation informing us that the 2004-2005 NHL season has been cancelled. Now as most of you know, I'm a huge die-hard hockey fan...but my position is with management and the owners. Players already make too much money and from a business sense, no organization can operate by giving away 75% of their revenues to their employees....it's just ridiculous. If the NFL and the NBA and the MLB can have salary caps and they're all bigger market sports, why can't hockey accept the same. Good for the owners for holding to their values...and shame on the players.

Unfortunately, I don't think this issue will be resolved any time in the near future. From the looks of it, it is quite possible for next season to be cancelled.

With that said, I have found myself missing hockey but not really craving it....mainly because I've found a new TV show to watch....do any of you watch 24??? I love that show. I watched one episode like 3 weeks ago and am hooked on it for good. I downloaded all the previous episodes this season and I'm going back and downloading Seasons 1-3. It is quite possibly the best show I've watched in a long time....if you haven't watched it...WATCH IT =) I guarentee you'll love it...it has Dennis' stamp of approval.

Does Evil Exist??

I think that this is something that we all struggle with. People always say, if God is so good and powerful, why do bad things happen on Earth, why do we have evil. I found this interesting except online and it's very interesting how the reasoning goes about the existence/non-existence of evil. It may be a little much thinking for a Monday, but hey give it a read =).

" The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, He did!" "God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes, sir," the student replied. The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil." The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question, professor?" "Of course," replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?" "What kind of questions is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat. The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded, "Of course it does." The student replied, "Once again you are wrong, sir,darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil." To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light." The professor sat down. "

The young man's name ---- Albert Einstein

New Look

So I decided that my blog site needed to get a little colour in it. I was getting bored with it. Lately I haven't really felt like writing my thoughts on the web. I think part of it might be that I'm getting lazy. I promise I will try to get back at this thing. What do you think of the colour scheme....like it?

Petro-Canada

It's now been 1 month into my 8 month work term at Petro Canada and what can I say, I'm learning a heck of a lot about the oil and gas industry. It's really quite amazing how gasoline and oil affect eh economic fabric of the country and the world. I'm one of those lucky people who seem to get positions where I can learn an industry in depth. I had retail experience and now I'm getting the oil business. While at first it was a little overwhelming absorbing all the acroymns and terminology I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I was getting a little frustrated at first at myself but I had to remind myself about the learning curve. We'll see what the following months hold for me

Readjusting to a new schedule

Throughout the time Selene and I have been together, we have gone through various phases, as I'm sure most couples do. It started off with us seeing each other everyday, working on school stuff together all the time. Then I decided to go to work for a year on coop and she finished undergrad. That was a change in itself. Then I went back to school and she started her master's program. Now we have entered the next stage of our relationship...the working world. We're both working now....she's downtown working for PriceWaterhouseCooper and I'm in Mississauga working for PetroCan. It's really different because I get to work around 7:30 am and leave around 5 pm where as she works from 9 am until 9 pm....the long hours of an accountant. In any case, I rarely see Selene during the week and most of our time together is spent on weekends. I know people say that seeing your significant other twice a week is good, but it's something new for us since we used to see each other almost everyday if not every other day. The good thing is that our relationship has evolved and matured to the point where we trust each other and we both realize that we both have busy schedules.....have any of you experienced this?

CSIE Conference a huge success

So as some of you may or may not know, I've been planning a conference for the Canadian Society for Industrial Engineering. It was on January 20-23 2005 and was a huge success. Something amazing about Industrial Engineers is that they must be the nicest engineering discipline ever. They party hard, drink like fishes but when the time comes to be professional and mature, they pass with flying colours. Being the director of sponsorship we helped fund the conference. I was able to get the following companies to sponsor us: Van Robb, MDS Sciex, Hbc, RBC Capital Markets, Accenture, Canadian Tire, Exel, Slim Technologies, Stranexus, Visual8, LXLI, Loblaws, Workbrain, Laubrass, CIBC World Markets, and Shoppers Drug Mart....pretty impressive huh? I'm in the process of putting up the pictures so please stay tuned for that =)

Aging???

Are you all starting to feel a little old? I am....I can no longer eat all the foods that I want without feeling ill. I can't drink as much as I used to, and I find that around 11 pm I get really tired. While I do go clubbing sometimes, I much prefer just hanging out at a restaurant or someone's place just to chat....

When I get a cut or a bruise, it takes weeks for it to heal. Not like when I was a teenager where the cuts would heal by the next day. When I work out, I feel the pain like 2-3 days after....not the next day.

Ahhh the beauties of growing old....I mean "maturing" =)