Feeling Great

I mentioned about a month ago that I was going to work on my fitness goals, and I'm pleased to report that things are going well. Down 11lbs so far in about six weeks, only 24 more to go to where I was two years ago, and then a lot more to where I was nine years ago. Go me!

I decided not to do MetSyn and instead leveraged my membership at the YWCA since it's a first class facility and more importantly, easy for me to get to and from home given the other constraints that real life has for me, like the commute to work, day care, etc. So now in addition to my two spin classes, I've added two mornings of weights. This might become three times a week, although once the weather improves and more importantly, the sun rises early enough, I'll be cycling on weekends again.

I've been working with the absolutely brilliant, talented, and fabulous Lisa Wagner and she has put together a cracking workout for me. This morning while I we were chatting she was talking about her long term plan for my fitness goals and said she would start me on a program where, I would do "100 pushups, 100 crunches, 100 rows, and 100 step-ups, in an hour, and we'll start on that in about, hmmm... 4... 5..." and in the pause I inserted "months?"

"Weeks," was her reply.

Fantastic.

Luther Wright & the Wrongs

I like a wide variety of music, and what's in vogue on my iPod varies on my mood.

Recently, I was over playing board games at a buddy's place and he puts on an album called Rebuild The Wall by Luther Wright & the Wrongs.

If you liked Pink Floyd's The Wall, imagine it done by a very talented bunch of country & bluegrass folks.

It's both really good and really funny at the same time. Y'all.

Playing With Numbers

It's tax time, or will be soon, and so I've been collecting my stack of information slips.

One of the benefits I have at my company is an employee stock purchase plan. Similar to many companies, the company I work for allows employees to contribute some chunk of their base salary into a fund that is then spent quarterly buying stock for us at a 15% discount.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I sell my shares pretty much as soon as I can. It's usually 5-10 business days from the date of the stock purchase to the time it's in my stock account and accessible to me, so in the interim, the price has fluctuated somewhat.

Now, as everybody knows, when you sell a stock, you're taxed on the capital gains; but here's where the fun with numbers begins.

To contrive the example with nice round numbers, I bought something worth $100 for only $85, but paid income tax on the $15 difference, so the asset, from the tax man's point of view, is $100.

Thanks to this little peculiarity, on paper, for tax purposes, I almost lost money in 2006 on the stock market.

Financial math really appears like voodoo sometimes.

Free is a Very Good Price

I have a KitchenAid stand mixer, one of the tilt-head kinds. I bought it about seven or maybe even eight years ago, and love it. Mostly I use it to knead bread dough, but I've also used it for:

• making pasta (with the pasta roller attachment)
• applesauce (with the fruit/veg strainer - no more peeling or coring apples required!)
• cakes
• whipping cream
• cookie dough
• grinding meat (with the grinder attachment)

It's a great kitchen appliance and while they're expensive, they're incredibly durable and well built.

If I've had a kvetch about mine, it's that the bowl is perhaps a little small for my usual bread dough batch. More often than not, it's fine, but sometimes the dough creeps up the dough hook and I have to stop and scrape.

For years I've been collecting Air Miles. Every once in a while I check to see if there are any rewards I'm willing to be parted from my points for, but a lot of the rewards haven't interested me, and despite the opportunity for "free flights" using points, you're still on the hook for all the taxes and surcharges and booking flights on points is a PITA (pain in the (_(_)).

However, just recently, they had the KitchenAid Professional 600 on in pearl grey. I thought about it and by the time I decided to act, they were gone. DOH! However, I've been keeping my eye out and lo, they now have them in white.

I've ordered one. 4600 air miles well spent! I'm looking forward to using it.

Marcello's on Commercial Drive

Marcello's is an Italian restaurant on Commercial Drive. My wife was working late and so I thought a nice way to spend the evening would be to take my daughter, who's almost three, out to dinner after work. I thought of taking her to White Spot, which is a place she likes, but she wanted pizza (I did offer her the choice - pasta, sausages, or pizza), so I thought I'd try out Marcello's.

Marcello's offers a nice well laid out place, with plain but elegant tables. Along the wall of the open kitchen is an astounding wood oven where they bake the pizzas. It looks like a giant stylized face of the sun, with the mouth being where the pizzas go.

Once we were shown a table, we were given menus and left to deliberate. The menu has a nice selection of pizza and pasta as well as salads and some other main courses. It's obviously meant to cater to family style dining, where orders are shared amongst those at the table.

We ordered a mushroom pizza for her and a gnocchi for me. I also ordered a glass of the sangiovese ($8 was pricey for what I got), and a steamed milk for my sweet pea.

The steamed milk came way too hot and with no spoon. When I asked the hostess for a spoon, none came, and by the time toddler agitation was setting in, my waiter finally came by once more. I waved him over and he said "your dinner's coming!"

I expected dinner to take some time, after all this wasn't Domino's, but all I wanted was a spoon. What we got was one of those long handled dessert spoons. Argh.

Cardinal restaurant sin number one was committed next. My gnocchi arrived, but the pizza did not. Generally speaking, dinner time's pretty easy going, but now the promised dinner was not on the table and there was no way she was going to even try the pasta. By the time pizza finally came, she was past wanting to eat so we pretty much had to pack up and go home (although the leftovers will be delicious).

The food was fabulous though. I'd go back in a group any time. Alone with kid in tow on a week night would be a different story.

Ratings:
Service: 2/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Food: 7/10
Price: $$

Score: 12/20

Restaurant Reviews

I think a lot about restaurants - I like to eat out, and when I do, I like to have a pleasant experience. While it's always about the food, ultimately, service and ambiance are also important.

I've decided that I'm going to have ratings with my reviews. They're completely subjective of course, since they ultimately reflect my likes and dislikes. However, the same rating for two places does not mean they're equivalent. For instance, if I were served a Risty's burger at Bishop's, it would still be a great burger, but for Bishop's it would probably be a 4 or 5 instead of an 8 or 9.

So on to the ratings...

Service: rated from 0 to 5.
Ambiance: rated from 0 to 5.
Food: rated from 0-10.
Price: rated from $ to $$$$.

What I'm looking for when I rate:

• Service - essentially I want the staff to acknowledge my presence, make sure my food gets delivered on time, and if I'm dining with others, that we all get our food at the same time. Relatively speaking, my expectations for a diner are different than for an haute cuisine establishment.
• Ambiance - this spans the gamut: cleanliness; decor; comfort.
  
• Food - this one gets the most points since it's really the most important thing. My expectations depend on the kind of restaurant it is; the chicken noodle soup at a diner is not the same as of the consommé de volaille at a fancy French restaurant, but both could score an "8".
• Price
  
• $ means inexpensive. Most diners fit here.
  
• $$ means about $20-25 per person. Most family restaurants like White Spot fit here.
• $$$ means we're getting expensive. Ironically, most places I end up disappointed in fit in this price range.
  
• $$$$ means bring your gold card. If it's got four $'s next to it, it had better earn a 16 or better.

A rating under 10 means I'm unlikely to eat there again.
10-12 means it's a decent place worth visiting.
13-15 means it's good and I'll go there happily.
15-17 means the place is great and I'll recommend it to others. I'm probably a regular.
18-20 is the creme de la creme. Highly recommended.

Timing is Everything

Late last week, China had a stock market "correction" and took down most of the North American markets with it. This week the markets are still down.

I could have predicted this - after all, I had just invested in an index fund (XIU on the TSX). However, I'm only down 5% so far! I wish I had more cash in my stock account to buy more actually. Market overreactions are always a good time to buy.

Ariadne auf Naxos

Last night we went to see the third production of the Vancouver Opera's 2006/07 season, Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

It was a lovely production. The story follows the play within a play model. Two groups have been hired to perform for a duke at his estate - one is for the opera "Ariadne auf Naxos", a tragic tale taken from Greek myth, the other a comedia del arte farce, involving Zerbinetta and her four suitors.

Hilarity ensues as the duke, concerned that the entertainment be complete for the 9pm fireworks, orders that the two groups combine their performance. Surely, his majordomo contents, such a "minor" change should be easily accomplished.

Of the operas I've seen, this is probably my favorite production to date.

Speaking of which, I've seen...

Nabucco (Vienna, 2001)
Die Fledermaus (Vancouver, 2001)
Turandot (Vancouver, dress rehearsal, 2005)
Dialogues of the Carmelites (Vancouver, dress rehearsal, 2005)
Macbeth (Vancouver, 2006)
The Magic Flute (Vancouver, 2007)
Ariadne auf Naxos (Vancouver, 2007)