Sunday, August 29, 2010

Godspeed, Soldier Brother

Well, Grant headed back to Afghanistan on Friday. I meant to get these pictures up Friday but got a little too busy over the past few days!



My personal favourites are the "Giant Grant Smash Puny Kids" and his lovely new headgear pictures.

Good luck and god speed, Grant!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Summer's (almost) Over!

Well, we're heading into the penultimate days of the penultimate week of the summer, so why not do a little recap and show everyone what we were up to over the past few months? We went to the Science Center, hit Storybook Gardens, swam in Lake Huron, got up to some shenanigans at the Early Years Center and moonlit as a firefighter or two.



Yeah, it was a busy summer but the kids sure seemed to have a blast and it was nice that they made some friends in the complex and have been able to hang out with them on the days when we have nothing else going on.

I've got a bunch of pictures of our visit with Grant from last week but I'm going to save them for tomorrow. He's going back to Afghanistan tomorrow and I'll give him a proper send off this way.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

It's Over?

I made it through my day from hell... by going to a meeting instead :)

It's actually pretty sad that I stressed out as much as I did for today because it ended up going just swimmingly and I'm not sure if that's because of or in spite of all of the long shifts, cold sweats and gray hairs I've accrued over the past couple months prepping for it.

At least I get to take tomorrow off and sleep in a bit.

Gots Me Some Chedda

I've got a serious cheddar cheese bagel addiction going on right now. I hate it because bagels at Tim Horton's are insanely expensive and I'd basically broken my habit of grabbing them if I was running late for work and needed a quick breakfast snack. But man, the cheddar bagels are soooooo yummy.

I need to go back to my no Tim's rule...

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Rob Liefeld, Look Out!

Garrett had a chance to participate in a comic-making workshop today at The Dragon in Guelph and had a blast. His teacher, Brian McLachlin, was able to somehow keep a group of 5 boys ages 6-9 focused for two hours and explain the intricacies of drawing a cup of coffee, a house and stink lines.

It was a hoot to listen to the kids brainstorm ideas for the comic. They ended up doing a comic about Sheriff Souvlaki (yes, an anthropomorphic delicacy if ever there was one) who had an apple for a body and was in some kind of strange duel with not only a hot dog and hamburger bandito duo, but an evil chicken. It ended with them catching the chicken (after Deputy Pita saved the day) and throwing the chicken in jail... ending with a final panel of the chicken serving as a head pin on a bowling lane.

And those were the more rational ideas that were picked to make the comic. The stuff being spouted at that table had the needle on the Surrealometer buried firmly past the Dali mark.

Garrett had a good time though and they're hoping to bring in more artists to do this with the kids again, so I'm going to do my best to get him in to as many of these workshops as possible.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

On The Mouth Of Madness

I feel kind of dumb whining about my travails at work when my brother just came back from an actual warzone, but my lord, I'm going to have a whole head full of gray hairs by the end of this month, if not this week. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not bad-mouthing my job. Heck, the big reason why I was so excited for this promotion last year was to have more responsibility but the last little bit has been insane!

I'm in one of those lovely positions where I've got about 300 plates spinning in the air and almost every day someone is throwing 5 more plates onto my stacks and wondering why I've got a thousand-yard stare every minute as I try to keep them from landing in a messy heap. This week will see many of those plates finally come down, gently or otherwise, so I guess I'll breathe a little easier after Thursday's shenanigans are over, but I need to get things to a place where I'm only dealing with 4-5 crises as opposed to 400!

Today was my first day back to work since Thursday and I already feel like I just worked an entire week. How I'll get through the next 2 weeks or so without cracking is beyond me. At least I didn't have to go back in tonight to do an unexpected overnight shift. I get to do that on the weekend instead :P

He's Back!

My widdle brudder is home from Afghanistan... or at the very least, on his way home. I think he was supposed to have arrived back here yesterday but I'm not 100% sure. I do know that he was in Dubai over the weekend, so at the very least he's not on the base in Kandahar and that's a huge relief!

I'm hoping to get together with him next week so it'll be nice to see how he's doing!

Thanks for all of the prayers, happy thoughts and sacrificed chickens for his safety. It's much appreciated!

Friday, August 06, 2010

Free Game!

If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, go here and get Civilzation Revolution for free for the next 24 hours. It's an awesome take on the Civilization franchise and it's usually $7, so why not get it free!

Hmm. Two posts in two days. I need to get back in the habit of this!