awsome day in Montreal - december roadtrip vacation with mom

yesterday we started at the biodome. It was -18 degrees and I froze my butt off. I forgot what -18 felt like back in my saskatoon days. It's really bloody cold! a minute without gloves and my hands were frozen.  Enough about the cold. The trip to the Biodome was about a half hour from where we stayed at in DDO.  Here is a pic of the Biodome, it's a great way to spend 2 hours in your day. The highlights for me was the recreation of a tropical rainforest and feeling like you're in a teeming with life and animal/insects diversity.  I also really enjoyed the different species of fish they had and watching the penguins do their thing in a cold environment was entertaining.

After the Biodome, I set the GPS for Shwartz's Deli, the food absolutely did not dissapoint. I chose the medium cut not the lean because I wanted the meat to melt in my mouth which it did! Beware though if you're going there at lunch time because there are long line ups. I went to the take-out place which took about 10 mins and then took the sandwich and ate a Thai restaurant that my mom went to down the street.  The service at the Thai restaurant was incredible and my mom convinced the staff to let me eat the smoked meat sandwich in the restaurant. Wish I had known that and I wouldn't have hid and eaten the sandwhich.  

After Schwart's it was time for a nap. I decided to go shopping at the Bay instead. I had to call my friend Anoop because I didn't know where there was a shopping mall in Montreal. We found a 5 story Bay on st.cAtherines street and it was a good time shopping and finding winter wear for our upcoming ski trip.  I took a snooze at the second cup in the mall attached to the Bay, while my mom went to buy gifts for her South African friends. She came back so excited, she found scarfs and winter hats for $5 each!  here is the pic of the Bay: (gotta love Google street view)

At 5pm we ventured to Old montreal. It was already dark and I drove around for about 45 minutes before I found the perfect spot.  Old montreal is filled with restaurants, very fine dining and I was really hoping to find a cafe.  I asked a local walking his dog and he said the area has gotten very touristy and he pointed me to the cafe which was a couple meters from us. It's called Muru Crepe and it was a fantastic place with nice ambience, great savoury crepe and fries and fantastic service. I supposed it helped there were only a few people in the place but the staff of one was a great guy who was very courteous and professional. I loved the moccacino and latte he made to perfection.  here is a pic of the restaurant:

the only downside to the day's experience was the ticket that was waiting for me after we left the restaurant!  I thought i would get away with it, who would want to ticket in -18 degrees :)
A great memorable day!

Suggestions for Blackberry BB10 UI change for Q10

I have been using a blackberry Q10 in the last couple weeks. While I love the keyboard and screen, there are a couple things Blackberry can do to make the Q10 small screen more usable. I would like to get rid of one of the bottom bars when reading and composing an email so that I have more screen real estate to view/compose my email.

here is a current email screen taken from a screenshot from the Q10 with markup on why the bellow buttons are redundant and taking up valuable Q10 screen real estate!

Here is a proposed fix and showing how more space for reading text can be added, without sacrificing the expanded menu (3 vertical dots) button.

I would like blackberry to consider having this hidden menu as an option in an upcoming BB10 software update. I think it will make the Q10 more usable and keep within the them of Getting things Done.

Happy 2013!! :)

I am spending my new years holiday in Mauritius with my mom. Its a beautiful island and I wanted too be by the sea to bring in the new year. On new years eve, we had a nice dinner while watching some Sega dancing (Creole music and dancing similar to hawaian) and then went to a hotel called blue lagoon to take in some good music by a live band. They played cover songs, mostly old english songs and mauritian music. When it was time for the countdown, we stepped onto the beach, had some champagne and watched a beautiful private fireworks display. It was a real treat. While we didn't know anyone else in the hotel, it was nice to be part of something special.
Happy New year!

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

my first radio interview :)

This morning at 6:15 am i was interviewed by Matt Galloway for CBC metro morning program. I was neerrrrvous!  The 5 minutes waiting for the interview to start (it was a phone interview) seemed like an eternity. A person named Gord called me up told me to be lively even though it's 6am and said feel free to call the interviewer Matt. I like Matt a lot i think he's a cool host and I like the fact that he stands for a lot of things I do. He's very pro toronto!  During the 5 minutes that I was waiting I was listening to the show and when it came time for him to talk to me I was saying a prayer and taking deep breaths because I was so nervous. It went by quickly. Matt pronounced my name perfectly and he asked me a couple questions about my being from south africa and why i didn't learn to swim and then switched back to the other girl in the studio. when he got back to me he asked what the hardest part of learning to swim was and then asked how I felt to finally learn how to swim. I'll post the audio clip when it becomes available.

A big big shout out to my swimming coach Sandra, she was great, she called me up yesterday afternoon and asked me to do this. I was hesitant and I had a couple nervous hours but it was totally worth it!  Off to my day job, stay tuned for the audio.

Here's the audio clip: http://krisen.ca/krisen.ca/metromorning_cbc_interview.mp3

I start at the 1:30 mark.

Cheers,

Krisen

Global warming?

With these record heat waves..( The last time it was this hot was 1930s) I wonder if this is a sign of global warming and more of this to come. How wasteful we as a species have become. Is it in our nature to be this wasteful and do things without thought of consequence. Maybe it is...I know that as much as I want to have less of a carbon footprint, I still want to drive my car solo to work and take flights where I want to do...and yes even buy plastic bottles and containers although this really does irk me at times.
I wonder what it will take for me, us to change? Maybe proof that by being less wasteful things will improve, polar ice caps will stop melting and crazy heat waves and smog will reduce...hmmm.

can the media destroy rim

Today Apple announced earnings of 30 billion dollars and a profit of 7 billion for the quarter...thats 3 months of business...Fuck! apple is a pure capitalistic company, deliver a good product that is made great by an ecosystem of talented developers of apps. there is nothing truly extraordinary about an iphone when compared to other devices other than their design and the apps. it makes it a useful device and people love the endless uses it has. this post is not about the fact i couldnt answer my iphone because its become sluggish or the fact that it doesnr really multitask all that well..no thats maybe a different post.

this is about rim, a couple months ago i bought a playbook by rim. its a good device however its got a ways to go to match ipad ability. one being native email support. we are probably talking about a few months of updates. although if you were to listen to the media, you would think the playbook is dead. there are rumors that it will be discontinued and every executive who leaves rim is reported by the media as another nail in the coffin for rim. the only balanced comments seemss to be from the users of rim or loyalists of the phones who express how much they enjoy using their playbook. its funny how quickly we and the media are ready to bring down a comoany or pit one as a loser against another and the distortion is so great. there is room for apple, android and yes the playbook, they each have their strengths. i am an apple fanboy but i dont agree with the company's negative marketing, arrogance and overpricing. i believe that Apple will take a mighty tumble when Steve jobs dies and they will find the need to reinvent themselves much like rim is having to do now. lets hope the media is a little less nasty on Apple.

Toronto scotia marathon training

Today I did a solo 18km run. I am very happy with my pace. 6:03/km it's a bit short of my goal of running a Marathon in under 4 hours. My target pace should be 5:45 but in due time. this is the heaviest I've been in a while. 175 yes too much late night eating. But I'm optimistic I'll shed some pounds and reach That milestone! More updates to come. This is really week 4 of my training for the october marathon and I'm glad to be on track! Next up massage to get rid of the aches and pains :p
Much love
Krisen