Rancho Bernardo, San Diego

Been in San Diego since Monday, with all-day meetings Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. Thank goodness we finish today at 3, or else I'd be missing out on all that sunshine! (It's actually kinda gloomy/cloudy today). Yesterday we held our meeting off site at the Rancho Bernardo Inn, and it was such a beautiful resort!! I tried to book that hotel, actually, but it was all sold out for some event. It is a huge hotel, and each room had its own little balcony overlooking the mountains. The best part about the place though, was that there was an on-site Starbucks cart, and you could pick up your regular Starbucks order and charge it to your room! That, to me, is pure bliss and should be mandatory at all luxury hotels.

Orange and lemon trees were scattered throughout the resort, which just made the place feel that much more Spanish/tropical. Seriously, I am falling in love with this place. I used to think of San Diego as a very urban, and maybe even a bit run-down city. Actually, I don't know what I thought. I just didn't expect that in the more inland places (where I am), it would be so beautiful. The houses are very cute - all one storey, maybe two or three tops.

I went a bit crazy taking pictures around the resort yesterday during our breakout session and lunch time. It was so sunny that we Canadians decided to hang out by the pool during our breakout session. It was so warm on the lounger that I seriously contemplated staying there for the rest of the day. There were opportunities for some cool macro shots, but because the sun was so bright I couldn't really see the screen so not all of them turned out nicely...

Tonight we're heading down very close to the Mexican border to go to an outlet mall for some serious shopping. Las Americas is supposed to house the only Neiman Marcus Last Call in California! I've already made a list of all the must-hit stores in there. Tomorrow before we leave, we still have to go to Target (again), See's Candies, and In-N-Out Burger!! I'm also going to be getting up early and head down to La Jolla in the morning to take some cool beach shots before we leave this pretty place.

Seriously, if you don't see me in Canada this weekend, you'll know I'm still hugging the palm trees.

this bod needs to be bikini-ready

Sooo next week I'm going to be in San Diego for basically the whole week. Although my coworkers don't know it yet, we will be checking out some nice beaches there. Particularly, I heard there is a beach where seals hang out!!! Maybe I'll run into an otter too ;) I also found out that there is a Saks and a Bloomies in San Diego, so I'm all ready to go. Except my wallet doesn't think so, but we're still negotiating.

Anyway, San Diego aside, this bod has been working to be bikini-ready since January, because I'm going to be in Hawaii in a month with my mom and my sister!! We're staying at the Turtle Bay Resort in the North Shore, which is about an hour's drive away from Honolulu and Waikiki. The North Shore is famous for the surf (which I don't really do, considering I can't even swim...shhh that's another can o' worms), and I'm kind of looking forward to being away from the crowds on Waikiki beach.

Oh yes, going back to the bikini-ready bod...so I've run into some obstacles, and it really is a "wagon" of some sort to be on a diet/exercising regime. First, I got incredibly ill for a whole week due to some insane flu that I caught. Seriously, I thought I had the bubonic plague the first night and I was convinced I would have to check myself in to the hospital or something. Then I was good for a week. Then the weekend came, and I didn't eat so well...(there was that free drinks thing on Friday at the Ivey Toronto Campus...) and then Valentine's Day came yesterday...and I made brownies...

...and today I got all excited and showed up at the gym at 7:35pm. The girl at the front desk asked me if I was there for the class. I wasn't. Then she kindly informed me that, oh, in that case, the gym's hours today are actually 6:30am - 8:00pm. Oops. I knew there was a reason why I had meant to go right after work!! So after 10 minutes of trying to pretend that I'm really keen, I gave up and walked home - there, that was my exercise. It is a 1k walk, and it's the thought that counts (and I really needed to pretend that I was burning some of those Haagen-Daazs calories that I had just consumed).

All in all, I've been pretty unmotivated since last Friday night, and I am not impressed with myself. I vow now to get up tomorrow at 6:00am to go to the gym before I go in to work. Because I've made it a public announcement, I will be there!!!

God, it's so hard to be bikini-ready.

meet marco

Meet Marco, the World Vision child I've just signed up this past weekend to sponsor. He's 4 years old, and on my birthday this year, he will be turning 5!

I'm really excited to get my 'sponsorship welcome package', which normally includes a letter from the child and a picture. I guess he's too young to write anything now, so I'm probably going to get something written by a volunteer...but nonetheless, I can't wait.

Alex has sponsored two kids for a while now, and I'd always been a bit skeptical about the organization and where the money is going. So instead of hanging around feeling suspicious, I went on the website and found their most recent annual report (signed off by KPMG). Apparently, they allocate ~85% of their cash inflows to helping these children at their project sites. It looks kinda fishy that there is a lot of free cash to the organization's name, so I hope they'll be actively allocating that cash every year!

Working from home today, and the World Vision thing is on - Alex Trebek hosting, weird - and it's so sad!!! It makes me feel good to be helping someone, and if it's as good as they make it look, I hope I will be giving these children more opportunities.

More to come when I get Marco's story in the mail!

the ceremonial first post

Ah, and from here on I will keep a blog...as long as I remember to post on a semi-regular basis. Being back on blogger is a way of admitting that I am aging and no longer have time to tinker with my own .html stuff, or pick up .php fun on the side. This is almost like typing out and printing a document from MS Word using Times New Roman, pt. 12 font. Except I'm not quite there yet...give me another nine months on the job and I might actually become jaded enough to do that...