Hanging out with the girls

Liyang and Andreana were in Coquitlam today to get highlights in their hair. We ate dim sum at Kirin and enjoyed our quality time together, sharing stories and laughing a lot.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Tonight, our family celebrated my Grandpa's 79th birthday. We ate at a Chinese restaurant in Port Moody. As always, there was more than enough food and lots of leftovers. Family get-togethers are always fun and offer a chance to catch up with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I find the older I get, the more advice I find myself giving to younger cousins -- and I try to do it without sounding too preachy :). I also have to remind myself to try to be a good role model and not get too explicit when it comes to talking about relationships. Our conversations about driving lessons, career choices and proms gave us 'older cousins' a chance to reminisce.

My younger cousin is planning for her prom. So, we were suggesting hairstyles for the day. I was surprised when she said that she wouldn't be all that bothered about a hairdo for the prom, but she'd get her hair done for a 'friend's' wedding. "Who's wedding are you going to?" I asked. I thought, her friends are still in high school. "My cousin's wedding," she replied staring straight at me! "If you get married, I would write a speech for you." It made me smile and warmed my heart.

Fired for 'flirting'?

When I checked my email at work this morning, I was surprised to see a message from one of the senior managers that read, "It's sad to announce that _ is no longer employed here. We wish him the best."

The abruptness of the message made me realize that this was a situation where the person had been let go. But, why?

This is the same person that I had the 'uncomfortable situation' with.

It happened to be our monthly Town Hall on this particular day, when the whole company meets and all senior managers report on the status of their projects to let all staff know what their department has been working on. When it came to one senior manager's turn (the one that had sent out the announcement), she stated that she wanted to talk about two company policies:

1) Email Policy -
'Inappropriate' email is not permitted; we were asked to consider the content of jokes before sending them interoffice and consider who would be receiving them

2) Harrassment Policy -
Any complaints about harrassment are seriously investigated and the necessary action is taken to resolve the issue

The mood was speculative; we'd never had such stunned silence at a Town Hall before.

Afterwards, I approached the manager and asked her what happened: The person that was 'let go' had been warned on three separate occasions not to send inappropriate emails interoffice and especially not to the person (let's call her 'J') who he was managing. A complaint of 'harrassment' was filed against him because the content of the emails made 'J' feel uncomfortable. When the senior manager approached him and confronted him, he denied that he'd sent the email. He was shown the 'proof' which had been documented and was asked to leave, since he had broken one of our company's core values which is 'honesty & integrity'.

What a shock to the system.

On a positive note, our company just ranked among the top four entrants for best governed private sector organizations in Canada by The Conference Board of Canada/Spencer Stuart 2007 National Awards in Governance. Other finalists in the private sector category were Royal Bank, Talisman Energy and Nexen.

It's good that we have a whistle-blower policy so that employees feel safe to speak out. Also, people need to be accountable for their actions.

Skiing at Cypress & celebrating

Today Shannan, Frank and I woke up early and headed up to the slopes on Cypress. It was a beautiful day to be outside. The sun was shining brightly, the mountain air was fresh and the view was breathtaking. Being one with nature always makes me feel so alive.

Each of us decided to take a lesson. The two snowboarders headed off and I joined the group of skiers. There were two instructors for our intermediate group. They watched our technique and eventually split us up into two groups of six to practice different skill sets.

I learned so much today! It was nice to have a private lesson. At the end, each person was given individual feedback. My take-aways are:

• Hold my hands out in front of me, instead of down at my sides
• Lean forwards, instead of backwards
• Turn with my feet first, instead of with my body
• To improve technique, practice moving up and down smoothly, between each turn

In the afternoon, we met up and practiced what we'd learned.

Note to self: Do not sit in the middle of two snowboarders on the lift chair :)

Why do they make the exits off the lift chairs so steep anyway? When Frank, Shannan and I got off the lift chair, we collided and I was sandwiched in the middle. All three of us were knocked off our feet and landed on our backs. My ski flew off and the back of my head hit the ground. I was stunned for a minute. The other two were struggling to get out from beneath me. Anyway, I have a nice black and purple bruise on my butt (from landing the edge of Frank's snowboard) and Shannan has a bruised lip, (from landing on my ski pole). We laughed it off. People are always wiping out exiting from the chairs.

We were famished after the workout. We stopped in at the South African store in North Vancouver and stocked up on biltong and dry wors, which took us back to our childhood. There are some things from your past that you always hold onto. Next stop was Stefos for calamari and lamb.

We shouldn't have eaten so much because Frank had a dine out in Vancouver event and I had plans to attend a birthday dinner.

Celebrating Chris' 30th

Chris' birthday was held at Shabusen. It was good to see everyone, since we weren't able to get together over the holidays. There was a lot of food and conversation.

The thirties are the beginning of a new decade. You have a better sense of who you are, who you love and you know what you want.

Dine out Vancouver

Cathy and I met up at 'Relish' to catch up and spend some quality time together.

The dine-out menu included:

Pan Seared Diver Scallops, warm bannock bread, mushroom cream sauce - or - Short Ribs wrapped in phyllo, garlic mash potatoes, red wine jus, sweet pea puree

Duck Leg Confit, honey-dill carrots, sweet potato hash, chili onion hash - or - Orange Rum Glazed Sockeye Salmon, savory crepe mashed potatoes, and seasonal vegetables

Chocolate Mousse Profiterolesmint creme anglais, chocolate sause - or - Chai Tea Cheesecake topped with caramel and a tuille flame

The dine-out menu was tucked inside the flap of the regular menu. When the waitress arrived to take our order. We pointed to the dine-out menu and said that we'd have everything on the menu.

After a while, we were wondering why our food was taking so long to arrive. We asked what the status of our order was. The waitress was embarrassed; She didn't realize that we were ordering from the dine-out menu, so she thought that we were joking when we said that we'd have "everything" -- she actually thought we were pointing to the main menu.

Oy Vey! It didn't ruin our mood though. It gave us a chance to catch up with news about Cathy's new HR recruiting business, Performance Personnel Inc., our careers, men, relationships and other woman's stuff -- all the while, enjoying our time together, building on our friendship and laughing a lot.

How money works

Nicole and I went to a workshop on 'how money works'.

This is what we learned:

Six steps to financial independence

1. Increase your cash flow
2. Manage debt
3. Create an emergency fund
4. Ensure proper protection
5. Build long-term asset accumulation
6. Preserve your estate

How to win financially

1. Be disciplined
2. Avoid procrastination
3. Money wisdom
4. Tax planning
5. Estate planning

Dim sum with the girls

For this month's dim sum, the girls headed out to Sun Sui Wah. It's always nice to catch up. So far there are lots of changes happening in the group from a break-up, to steady-relationships, an engagement, a wedding, three new home purchases, a second pregnancy and a soon-to-be mommy. My ownly gripe is that it's difficult to hear when restaurants are so noisy and the tables are...so round. I'll still have to read your blogs to catch up with some of you.