Weekends Rule Again

Not that they ever didn't -- but now that I'm back at work Mon-Fri, I certainly appreciate them to the fullest degree once again.

This is a photo of the house we rented down in Mexico -- large, three bedrooms, marble floors everywhere, and that pool in the back was a daily cool-off station in the heat of the daytime. The routine was get up, grab some breakfast, get in the pool, dry off in the sun, then on to whatever else. We swam at all times of day, morning to midnight, didn't matter. It was never cold out!

A surprise bonus was satellite TV, based in BC. So we got to see the World Junior gold medal hockey game, as well as that crazy semifinal shootout vs. the U.S. Also, a Flames-Canucks game but I don't remember too much about that. One of those Bell ExpressVu channels was A-Channel Victoria. So, we could have watched local news -- but didn't.

I'm just now eating the last of the Chocolate Lucky Charms that Bethy brought me from Phoenix. We saw them in Montreal last year, then she saw them down south and nabbed a box for me. Now, I see they've made it to Victoria's grocery shelves. As much as I like cereal of the Frosted Chocolate Sugar Bombs variety, this is just too much. Regular Lucky Charms is way better. It's been years since I've seen my all-time fave: Pac-Man Cereal! I should stress that these are a treat, and most days it's granola or All Bran.

I was tipped off to a pretty cool music website that you should check out: Pandora.com (added to my links).

An 8.2 earthquake Friday night near Russia triggered a tsunami warning for the northern Pacific Rim -- and a simple advisory for the rest of the West Coast, just to make us aware. I was on the radio desk when it happened, so all these emails and phone calls from emergency preparedness staff were rolling in, as well as bulletins on the news wire. After the big Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, it seems they've been working on the early warning network. Anyhow, Victoria was never going to be threatened, but it was still a good test of how something like that would go. A bit of excitement on an otherwise slow Friday night shift. Breaking news is what radio does best, and it's what I most enjoy doing on-air. The would-be tsunami turned out to be a mere ripple, by the way -- lightly lapping the shores of Hokkaido Island and northern Alaska. Better safe than sorry I guess.

If you're interested:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_re_as/japan_earthquake