need a new template: please comment

hi all.
well actually, this post is more for dialogue between the three of us, but anyone is welcome to share their opinion.

i mentioned before that i think we should change the template. it's pretty hard to read, and well, to be frank, is kind of ugly. (i can say that because i think it was me that picked this one plain black one.)

so i've got a couple if ideas. there's the orange one which i like partly because LQ reminds me of orange, and because it's pretty, well layed out and readable. then there's the jellyfish one which i also kind of like, but is pretty wide. Those would be my 2 suggestions, but there are a ton to choose from from inside the blogger site.

let me know what you think. the great thing about my new job is that i can tweak any of these templates to suit our fancy. (i could even make us one of our own, but that would take much time and effort.)

ciao!
p.s. if you don't comment within a week i will take it to mean that you don't check the blog and don't care therfore i will change it to whichever one i feel like. :)

Moving... i think

So it's pretty much official: I'm moving apartments.

I have been thinking about moving from my current apartment for a while, and talking about it for even longer than that (I do a lot of talking without thinking first), and now have finally got the guts to get on with it. May 1. Hopefully it will be to a place just down the street which is pink and quaint and 1930's and has a nice bit of character to it (i LOVE character in buildings). Oh, and rent is pretty reasonable too.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with my apartment now. It's great. (And if anyone is looking for a place in central Vanc. with a gorgeous view and big bright windows for May 1, then I'm your hookup.) ...BUT it IS darned expensive, and it doesn't quite feel like home.

So the plan, if all works out, is that I'll be able to start moving in on April 15th (conveniently, the day my parents will be rolling into town with their 1/2 ton Albertan pickup truck) but will have till May 1 to have all of my things out of the old place.

I'm headed to take a second peek at it tonight with Melanie, so will post some pics if M brings her digitial camera.

ttfn!

I can go on!

~yet another work-time post~
Just got back to my desk after a game of foosball (yes, I should be working) and was totally not motivated to get to work. Not that today was an especially bad or boring day (it was actually quite exciting with an important meeting an a team lunch out) but I just didn't feel like doing anything. Checked my cell phone and got not one, but 2 (two!) messages from two totally awesome friends. So thank you to Steven Klaasen and to Ruth (I got their messages in that order) for bringing my day around full circle. I now feel like I can get down to work for another hour until I have to leave.

As an aside, I'll tell a little bit about what I'm working on. (Just a bit as I am now so very motivated to be working.) Right now I'm revamping the GUI (that's Graphical User Interface for all you non-techies) of a computer system which the company built a while ago so that it looks presentable for a demo that some of the business people are doing next month. Basically it involves making pretty (adding colour, fixing fonts and layout) a program that was definitely designed by engineers. I'd post some screenshots, but I don't know if that's allowed.

Anyhoo gotta get back to work. But I do hope that i get to talk to both of my good friends soon. (Steven I hope you don't mind me calling you a 'good' friend. We've only hung out a couple of times, but I can tell already that you are worthy of being called 'good' at being a friend.)

hello jeff

This is going to be a quick post as I am at work and it is during working hours.

Apparently anyone can access a website through the internet.

I was sitting at my desk just a few minutes ago when I overheard the words "your officemate" and "has a blog" being spoken to my officemate Ben. I pulled off my headphones with my ears ringing. I demanded that Jeff explain what he was talking about.

Apparently if you go to finance.google.com, search for my company ('mda' works), and check out the "other blogs" link at the bottom of the blogs section, you'll find a link to my post "vancouver ho!".

So this post is for Jeff -- thanks for not sending the link out to the whole team (or the whole company). And for Ben too: thanks for being the kind of guy who wouldn't do such a thing. It makes me a little bit wierded out that any of you can now read all of the things I've written on this blog, but I guess you (or anyone else) could have done that anyways.

Did a quick google search on "zoe + blog + vancouver" and didn't find any links to our site in the first 15 pages, so that's a bit of a relief anyways.

not the only one

I MUST defend myself. But I've only got 3 minutes...

So I haven't been posting so much. BUT there's a good reason. My silly laptop is broken (screen backlight is acting up again, rather acting down -- not working at all). Sooooo, that's my excuse. And a pretty good one.

How, you may ask, am I typing this blog? I'm at work. I generally try not to stay after work too late (this is a new *discipline* i'm trying to practice), so blogging is generally tough.

On another note it was GORGEOUS outside in vancouver today. I'll add an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend this morning.

"As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes this morning at 6:30 the sun was already out, promising a gorgeous beginning to the first day of spring. As I left my apartment and walked out to the bus stop, I was welcomed into the day by the sun`s bright shining and the beginnings of the smells of springtime. It is indeed a beautiful day. Vancouver being mild as it is, has been green in places for most of the winter, but a new greeness is sprouting in the new leaves and buds on the trees and bringing with it excitement and expectation of warmth and life, and a renewed reason for hope."

Hope it is just as sunny where you are today.
z.

I guess I'm the only one posting

Hello all! I miss you all and Canada. Sometimes Texas and Mexico are just a little to much. What is a person to do when they are homesick. If only I felt like having a real job and living a normal life. But alas, I love adventure and don't want to settle. I definitely have a fear of commitment.
Its cold in Mexico today, like 9C and very windy. So, I wish today I wasn't here. Oh life! So, what's going on in all your lives? I think that you should all post comments and tell me how your doing and then I will get a taste of home. Besides this is also a great idea because we don't do post so much so you could make our site more active. Just so you know, I appreciate you all and am interested in your lives.

Good Morning

Hello

So, I woke up this morning with a cold. Actually, let me start with last night. It is spring in Juarez which means we have wind storms. The winds were going 50 miles an hour which is like 80 km an hour (I think). Super windy and of course it means sand storms. There is sand everywhere and in everything. Anyway, I get nightmares that the wind will pick up my car and take it away or it will rip the roof off of my house. All possible, but didn't happen. Anyway, I don't think I really slept until like 3 when the wind finally went down. And then I woke up at 5 with a sore throught. You known when you go to bed feeling fine and then the next morning you feel like total crap. That's me this morning. So, felt sick and was like, I should stay in bed, but I felt so uncomfortable that by 6:30 I got up. I wish my day wasn't busy today, so I could go back to bed, but it is and I will just have to deal and eat a lot of halls. Hopefully it will pass by Saturday because I have to host a team next week.

On a brighter note. I went on a Holy Spirit retreat this weekend. It was really good and relaxing. I went up into the mountains of New Mexico which has trees and water. Very beautiful.

another vancouver saturday

today i saw more of vancouver than i have in a long time. this morning i took the skytrain back from new westminster after having stayed the night with friends out there, and though it was kind of cloudy had a good view of some of the lower mainland. i was surprised once again at how beautiful ALL of this area is, not just the mountains and the ocean on the westside. it was great coming back from my night 'away' and as i was riding along, felt like i was seeing this place through the eyes of a tourist; it reminded me a lot of visiting england and taking the train there.

lunch (originally was breakfast, but got delayed) consisted of me hosting my sister megs, her friend rebecca and rebecca's dad ross (or russ, he had an accent so i couldn't tell which it was) for eggs benedict. rebecca and i have been talking for months about her giving me a couch that was sitting in her garage, and this weekend it finally happened. to express my thanks, i attempted to cook them a delicious breakfast. this mostly succeeded. the hollandaise sauce gets an 'E' for effort; it was nice and creamy until they arrived, but unfortunately with the distraction it went all curdly when i stopped whisking it. :( the asparagus was also a little overcooked, but all aside, it went well. this is mostly because they were VERY gracious, and because their company was FANTASTIC. Ross (russ?) is a doctor and the head of something big in the world of medicine in BC, and is a hilarious and down to earth man -- very personable. Rebecca (whose first impression did not endear her to me) takes after her dad, and we had some great discussions about her passion - environmental conservation. And I love being able to hang out with Megs too. It was definitely the lunch that I've had at in my apartment in current memory.

in the afternoon i took a trip to the downtown east side, where i met a bunch of the UBC Navs who were participating in a workday at a community house down there. i haven't really spent any time down there since our LQ 'plunge' last may (see earlier posts), but as i walked down the familiar streets, 'colorful' for more than just the many posters and shopfronts, i realized that i really missed it. there is a certain rawness to the place which i absolutely love. i think its because i can feel God there more than i can in most other places in this city. down there i can see Life Unashamed, life in all its ugliness and its glory.

the evening was beer and hockey at a neigbourhood pub with a friend from high school and a couple of his buddies. All in all i guess that makes for a pretty full (and good) day.

sorry for the long post (again). must put 'brevity' on my todo list. :)

Lent

I awoke this morning with a certain heaviness in my heart. Today is the first day after Ash Wendesday, the second day in this season called Lent.

It is raining today for the first day in a long time. There is a sadness in this rain, but a fresness & a newness in it too.

It may sound funny to say, but I am looking forward to Lent.