My Birthday in New York

I spent my 24th Birthday in New York this year. In the company of the lovely Tim.

We had an absolutely brilliant time. We met each other at Newark airport. I flew in from Calgary and Tim from Chicago on the Thursday evening.


Tim had organised a lovely hotel just off Broadway and between Times Square and Central Park. The whole thing was utterly serial and completely met my expectations. At times I felt like I was walking around a movie set haven seen most of the sights a thousand times on the TV. Amazing.

It was lovely and warm in NYC, and we spent my actual birthday having a great picnic in Central Park. We wandered around for hours and only covered a tiny part of the park! We also headed to the Central Park Zoo. Unfortunatly didn't bump into any of the animals from the Madagascar movie. But then I guess thats because they're still there...

We then walked down 5th Ave, where I drooled at the shops. Headed to the Rockefellor Centre and up to the Top of The Rock. Amazing views. Then out for a nice dinner.

The Next day saw us visiting Grand Central Station, the New York Public Library and then heading to a Broadway Show. We went to see Avenue Q. Highly recommend everyone to go and see. Hilarious. Followed by dinner at a lovely Seafood resturant where I had the obligatory Cosmopolitan cocktail, and then a nice walk up around the area.

We headed to more of the southern Manahatten areas on the Sunday. Took a trip out to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty, quite an overwhelming thing to see that close up, and then Ellis Island. Provided some amazing views of Manhatten and the Hudson River. We then walked up towards ground zero. Very eerie area, we wanted to walk round it to just gage the sheer scale of what was left behind, not somewhere you want to linger though, very sad. Then onto to Wall St and the City Hall and along the Brooklyn Bridge

Then came the incredible Megu. An upmarket sushi resturant that my Lonely Planet had suggested. Quite an amazing experience. Incredible atmosphere and insides, and the sushi was pretty amazing.... probably shouldn't of ordered the wine size bottle of Sake for the two of us though!

On Monday we attempted to head home. Spent a LONG time in Newark airport as our flight to Chicago had been cancelled. 5 hours later I was on my way home to Calgary via Toronto and Tim caught the second flight out that left for Chicago.

A weekend I will remember forever.

Gerald Wigram 30th Dec 1916 - 17th May 2009

Last Sunday my Grandpa passed away. He was 92 years old.

He had four Daughters. My mum Bridget, Marylee, Carolyn and now Maria too.

As I am in Canada I was unable to attend the funeral today, where I'm sure there will be a massive turnout.

I didn't know a massive amount about my Grandpa's life. Should've made a point to ask. But I do know how so many people hold my grandfather in very high regard. And so do I.

He had so many family friends all over the world. That shows what I mean.

He was a teacher, a father, a husband, a farmer, a soldier and those are just the parts that I know about.

I also know he was stubborn. In hindsight perhaps this explains my stubbornness. Not a bad trait to inherit in my opinion. He wouldn't let life and old age get him down. I remember when he lived at Calverleigh and there was a massive, steep lawn in front of the house, he would drag a lawn mower up and down this lawn, for years and years and years, even when he wasn't really strong enough anymore and had accidents, would he stop? Would he heck. He enjoyed doing it too much, so he carried on.

I also remember his huge fruit patch he had at Calverleigh. As kids we would sneak out and get caught up in the netting whilst trying to retrieve raspberries. In fact I'm pretty sure this is where my brother Mike's strange love for Gooseberries came from.

The endless hours that Mike and I would play pick-up sticks in the sitting room whilst grandpa sat in his massive reclining chair (which we thought was particularly cool), doing crosswords, smoking his pipe and drinking his whiskey.

Most of all Gerald Wigram was a generous man who opened his home up to everyone. Guarenteed when you went to Calverleigh Cottage there would be at least 10 others, kids, teenagers, adults, charging around the house. There was almost always jacket potatoes and cold meat ready for anyone who turned up. He created a home that was always lively, full of people, full of laughter and occasionally of sadness, but everyone had a home there.

My heart will be there with everyone during this tough time even if I can't be there in person.

Rest in peace Grandpa. We will miss you.

Long time no blog....

Wow, I'm rubbish!

Prepare for a giant post with updates of love, life, family and skiing!

Love

So, as some of you may or may not know, I'm happily in love, yay! (About time too I hear some of you say, thought it would never happen I hear many of you also say) Tim used to work for ThoughtWorks Calgary but left to go and work for a new company based in Chicago, so he now lives in the US. We've been together for 3 months or so now, and split every other weekend between Calgary and Chicago. Building up the airmiles! We've been building some awesome memories, and I'm really really happy that I have him to share my world with now. (excuse the momentary soppiness.. can't help it!) I have just come back to Calgary from Chicago where I spent the Easter weekend.... and the next super exciting trip will be to New York for my birthday in mid May. So excited!


Life

Life is busy busy these days. February saw me leaving the "beach" at work and joining my first client assignment for a major communications company in Calgary. I'm working as a developer on the SOA team, giving me some awesome exposure to a huge technology stack and giving me the opportunity to work with some great people. The environment is certainly a challenging one and I'm learning new things every day. My consulting skills are constantly challenged, as well as my development and confidence. Certainly a learning curve!

The ThoughtWorks team on the account are a really fun bunch of people, so that's great. We even had a visit from some Easter bunnies this last week!



Family

In early March my Dad, Step mum and bother came out to Canada to visit. They were here for two weeks, in an unfortunately cold snap!

We spent a week together up in Banff, which was brilliant. We had some good early spring skiing. I got my step mum skiing for the first time in maybe 10 years! Good time had by all I hope. It was really nice to show them my new life here.



Skiing

Spring is sort of here (i.e. its hot and sunny one day and snowing the next!) and with it spring skiing. Anita, JJ, Martin and I all headed to Fernie about a month ago for a mini ThoughtBoarder. First time I had been down to that part of the world so it was great to see some more of Canada.




That's about all for this quick update. I'm going to make an effort to try and blog more....

BBC Radio 1's Golden Hour on the Chris Moyles Show last Friday...

Always some classic tuneage so thought I would document the playlist...

Buck Rogers - Feeder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TataYXStVr8

Have A nice Day - Stereophonics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rPe0BtYvTA

Survivor - Destiny's Child
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtgDRFOaX-A

Little L - Jamiroquai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJj2v37T9xA

Good Soul - Starsailor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8yrsJvIngQ

Pure and Simple - Hearsay (bit of a let down...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVAmuWvKhIs

Live Forever - Oasis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v46hBp93HjY

Baby got back - Sir Mix a lot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3cHD6W0PUY

Little Fluffy clouds - The orb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWMIXgCaJPQ

Cloud 99 - RIP Groove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho1JFqAc93A

In da club - 50 Cent

I have reached a new frontier in my Developer Career it seems...

So today whilst in the car with some co-workers on the way home from the client site, I revealed that on Friday night I couldn't sleep because I was programming in my head and my brain was telling me that I had no unit tests for going to sleep therefore I would need to at least do that before I could, I was also missing Sleep classes....

The first thing they said was "HAHAHA our work here is done".As i proceeded to look quite horrified about this ever happening again I was reliably informed that i am now officially a geek this was a perfectly normal occurrence ... (!) and that i simply needed to actual programme my going to sleep in my head and I would of been fine....

Perhaps this is why I can never get up in the morning....

Fish face hits Chicago...

The many Fish Faces of Anne...

It has come to my attention that I can be a bit odd....

.. to illustrate I have realised that I have grown quite a collection of pictures of me making fish faces... Therefore I shall now endeavor to take Fish Faces everywhere my adventures take me.... Stay tuned for more!