Hearth and Home

Paula was kind enough to have the department over for an American Thanksgiving potluck full of delicious food, warm friends, and good conversation. And so her cat could video-tape our butts.

Secrets of the Unknown

Have I ever showed you this trick? You can see the infrared light on a remote control light up if you use a digital camera. These guys don't seem impressed. But we should still make IR Christmas lights that you can only see through a digital camera, yo.

Thanksgiving

This year, we let Rosie's do the turkey-cooking for Orphan's Thanksgiving. I didn't spend much time taking pictures. I was too busy eating.

Profiles

It's my job to help run the website now, which means putting up pictures of fellow grad students. I wish Sullay would let me use this one.

PANCAKES!

... with real Maple and Saskatoonberry syrups!  Plus two fruit salads composed with complementary distributions of fruit! Nota bad way to start a morning.

Hope

I guess this means Sullay Mohammed Kanu Jr. could become the president too.

Bail boss! Bail boss! Bail boss!

When Canadians do Sierra Leone-ish things like selling used clothes on a big makeshift table, Sullay is always there to watch and laugh. We were pretty successful, but there were a few stubborn items that refused to be sold.

Sigh.

I'm so behind that I took this picture at a going-away party for someone who has already come back.

MARSBLOG: All Martha, All the Time

Offers to take Martha to The Mall while she was here were met with nothing but eye-rolling, so instead I took her in to see the department. Despite being an engineer by training, Mars almost immediately made my toy helicopter fail to fly:She made up for it, though, by being brave enough to open the door I sure as hell never would have.
I tried to tell her that Timmy's isn't as popular out here, but my claim was undermined almost immediately: Sure, Waterloo has four of them on campus, but you can't stand in the same place and see two of them.
When Martha heard that Edmonton had a Chinatown, she thought she'd like to check it out. I think she didn't think it would be very Chinese. It turns out she was right:
After knitting for a while at a hole-in-the-wall bubble tea place packed floor-to-ceiling with crates of mangoes, we went back to Jasper. Here's Mars at the arboretum, blithely unaware that she is about to be grabbed by a giant cactus monster
Before heading back across the river, we stopped in at the Macdonald for a little repose:
Martha was a little bit confused by this sign:
...but I thought it was pretty self explanatory: "Queen Elizabeth swimming in river: THIS WAY"

Anyway, we met up with a bunch of linguists on our way to dinner. I guess they were excited to see us:

That's Sullay's laugh you hear in the video. He was so impressed, he decided to give it a try for himself:
Eventually we made it to the restaurant, where they served us tasty Indian food by the bucket load:All in all, a great visit.

Security

Alison and I were bouncers for the department party last night. You can see how seriously she took the job, both by how she's dressed and by how she's started a lineup to prevent the club/classroom from exceeding capacity. We must have slipped up at some point, though, because one of these people is probably a minor.

Team Work

Sullay has spent a fair bit of time on this blog lately, so he knew why I was taking his picture. He said emphatically that I should use the word "Team" in the post because in his native language it also means "fight". But I've never seen him even want to fight anything other than contempt for imagination. And maybe fighting itself.

Tanyas Win!

When you spend the day sightseeing in a scenic town with lots of your friends it's hard to pick even a small number of pictures for your picture-a-day blog. Somehow today the Tanyas knew just what to do, like when Tanya got Sullay's attention here:
or when Tatiana's face exploded due to puppy cuteness:

Post-Graduate Work

Yes, on our way to the conference 5 of the 6 graduate students got crayons and coloured giant anthropomorphic eggs named "Humpty". The professor folded Humpty into a Wurlitzer instead.

New Places

How could you not wonder what it's like inside a place called the Russian Tea Room? The tea wasn't that good, and I didn't try the psychic readers, but I like the atmosphere.

Happy Birthday Sullay!

I think Sullay said his only wish is to be happy, but it's hard to imagine him otherwise. It's certainly difficult to be anything but happy when he's around.

Farewells

I'm going to Prague, then London, then Vancouver, then Palo Alto, and by the time I get back from all that Victor might be gone. This being the last night before I left, a bunch of us went out to have a last look at the scenic landscapes painted cheesily on the Garneau walls.

End of Term?

For the second time in as many days I was invited out for a beer to celebrate the end of term. I didn't even know there _was_ a term. Also, the Leffe tasted a little bit like banana.

Party Time?

Here are people looking how I would feel if I had finished my papers. It's a non-stop party atmosphere around here, but for me it's a non-start party.