Burrito West Blog

I started my vacation by discovering the night before separture that my passport had expired!

after a sleepless night and a lot of cursing.... the vancouver passport office totally saved the day and got my renewed passport processed is 4.5 hours which was perfect!

whew! that was not fun, I don't recommend it. seriously, go check you passports now, just to be safe.

at the airport we were both randomly selected for full body scan./pat down ( I'm 2 for 2 for being randomly selected.).

In the end we arrived in vegas, got our rental car, drove down the strip, marvelled at the weirdness that is vegas, and made it to our hotel on freemont st.  We strolled down freemont st and enjoyed the lights and vintage neon signs and bridal parties ziplining overhead, then collapsed in our room.

We started early the next morning - aiming to make it to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in time for the 3pm tour.   We drove through Zion National Park which was stunning and made it just in time for the tour!

So far we've had 1 day with the dogs and today is cats.  Best Friends is amazing and I will be blogging loads about it later!

To follow my adventure -check out my twitter feed (sidebar to the right or www.twitter.com/beach650) and my flickr photo set :  http://j.mp/epjGKb  (updated daily)

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Peter and I passed our Bronze II dance exam last week. whoo! So now we're Bronze III which I'm sure will be very exciting. We went to our first bronze III class on Friday night and I was totally lost. So, yay for a challenge?

In technology-related news, my love for my smartphone and my ebooks have collided. I downloaded the Kobo app for my Palm phone and now I have books on my ebook reader AND my phone. Because sometimes I don't bring my ereader with me, but I always have my phone with me. It's nice being able to read snippets here and there, since I don't seem to have much dedicated reading time.

We just booked our last night of our vacation - we fly in and out of vegas so we've scheduled a night in vegas on our way back to see the sights. I was playing with priceline's name your price feature for about a week before I snagged my deal. We'll be staying in a fancy 4 star hotel on the strip. Sweet. So everything is booked and ready for us!!

Holy crow. It's been -5deg C the last few days in Vancouver. Which is like -10deg C with windchill. There's a windchill in Vancouver?! It's really really cold!! Freakishly cold.

Just, you know, fyi.

So my first 2 donors have blown me away with how generous they've been! It's very wonderful to get such support so quickly.

I hardly ever do fundraising things because I hate to ask my friends and family to give cash - what if they can't afford to, what if no one donates? Then it's all ackward. That's why I like the charity:water concept of giving up your birthday/holiday - it's less about asking for money people hadn't budgeted for and more about asking people to redirect money they were going to spend anyway. But already I'm seeing that my friends are more generous than that even, which is a pretty awesome thing to discover.

And - since I'm donating all the proceeds from my etsy shop - there's an easy way for people who weren't planning to spend money on me to still contribute (while getting awesome stuff). I've got a few co-workers planning to do some holiday shopping in my office.

Doing this kind of thing doesn't come easy to me - asking people to do something for me, but it's going well! Honestly - watching the charity:water videos of them in the field, drilling wells for villages and seeing what an incredible difference it makes and how determined they are to make a difference, that's what made me get over my discomfort of asking people to help me. I really like how charity:water documents their work - it's not the black hole kind of chairity where you donate and then just assume good stuff was done with the money. Charity: water takes photos, blogs, maps, videos their work. You are told exactly where in the world your money went to provide clean water (they give you GPS coordinates!). They do live video broadcasts of well drilling events every September. It's amazing stuff.

In other news - today marks 1 week until I get to fly away on my volunteer vacation! I'm still super excited about it. We've booked our accommodations, including a little cottage on the sanctuary itself. I'm looking forward to the pet sleepovers they let you do - it's a chance for dogs/cats to experience a more home-like environment and get more people time, and it's a chance for volutneers to get to have a snuggly creature for the night!

I've been reading the blogs they do for animals in the Guardian Angel program - these are animals with special needs whose journeys they document. People can become guardian angels by giving regular monthly donations. Just reading their stories is so heartwarming and goes to show you what kind of place Best Friends is.

For example - Roxy the cat, who is ridonkulously adorable (see left), came from a rescue operation in Manitoba. Roxy has feline leukemia so she can't be with non feline leukemia cats. She also has a neurological problem so she doesn't walk in a straight line - she kind of wobbles. Fortunately, Best Friends has a special wing for feline leukemia positive cats and doesn't mind at all if a cat has a different way of getting around.

She's healthy, and quite the charmer, apparently. And totally ready for adoption, if someone comes along who doesn't mind that she's a bit different. But, if she doesn't get adopted - she's got a home for life at Best Friends. While many shelters would put down a 'defective' cat - Best Friends is a no-kill shelter and they welcome all kinds of wonderful 'defective' animals. Like their latest arrival Forrest.

Apparently I'm just one big sap, because I read through all these stories and I it makes me feel better about society as a whole. Some days I read comments on news articles and dispair for humanity, other days I read stories from Best Friends and feel much better. I can't wait to see it in person!

Christmas is coming! And soon after that, my birthday! What do those things have in common?

I'm giving both of them up to raise money for Charity: water.

The idea is that people who were going to generously spend money to get me gifts for either occasion go to my campaign website and make a donation instead. Any donation is awesome - $10 or $100 or $1,000,000, whatever you can spare!

Here's my pitch:
I'm very lucky to live in a beautiful part of the world where water is very, very abundant.

Seriously, really abundant.

Also - I'm fortunate to have everything I need in life. I don't need more stuff. Certainly not more than other people need clean water.

So please help me - instead of generously buying me a nifty thing for Christmas and then another nifty thing for my birthday (you're very kind).... donate to my Charity:water campaign instead.

For Christmas & my birthday, all I want is to make life better for other people. Thanks for your help!
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The story of charity: water - The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Luxury Lab - Scott Harrison of charity: water from charity: water on Vimeo.

I have booked a vacation!! I was hunting around for something nice and relaxing to do, something different, and was struggling to find anything that didn't cost more than it seemed worth.

Then, by luck, I discovered that one place that had always been a faint idea in my head of a place to visit someday was only a 4 hour drive from Las Vegas. This is significant because flights from Vancouver to Vegas are stupidly cheap. So suddenly, this place that I had always thought was far away and hard to get to was very accessible.

I threw out the idea of visiting this place to a friend and she was very enthusiastic and we immediately started hatching plans. I had thought I'd plan something for next year but she suggested we go right away. She's brilliant like that. So in about 2 weeks, we go!! The flights and rental car are booked and we're figuring out accommodations now. Yay!

We'll be visiting and volunteering at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT.

It's a 3700 acre animal sanctuary with thousands of animals. They do amazing, incredible work - both at the sanctuary and nation-wide to reduce the number of animals killed in shelters. I challenge you to read some of their news stories and not fall in love with them. I've been reading their website for years and have heard that visiting and volunteering is an awesome experience.

And, it so happens that Kanab, UT is near both Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon, both spectacular places to visit. So, we're going to go, help some animals for a few days, do some sightseeing in a part of the world I've never been to, then spend a day and a night in vegas and poke fun at the ridiculousness.

It's going to be fantastic. I haven't been this excited about a trip in a while! Seriously, I'm quite insufferable right now since I can't talk about anything else.

The automated feeder has arrived!! Tomorrow morning we will know whether there is hope of breaking Peter's involvement in the 5am feeding kerfuffle! I will update you all!!

Update: it worked!! Peter set it to go off at 4:30, and it did. And it was loud, because it's an industrial machine. Pellets were dispensed into the dish, we fell back asleep and no one woke us up! WHOOOO!! We have regained our mornings! Yay! Thank you glorious automated feeder, we love you!

last week I ordered a device that I'm hopeful will revolutionize our lives.

It's an automated pet feeder. And not a cheap one - we went industrial: digital timer, rugged design. We want it to dispense exact amounts of food at precise times. Most particularly, at 6am. I can generally sleep through the kerfuffle that happens at 5:30-6am when Bernoulli demands food, but Peter can't. Every morning he gets woken up early. So the high price on this automated pet feeder is a small price to pay to be well rested. We're anxiously awaiting its arrival and the glorious sleeping in that will begin!