So Long, 2011. Good Morning, 2012!

So here we are at the end of an incredibly odd year. I won't say it's been a bad year for us, but I wouldn't say it has been a great year either. It has also not been a status quo kind of year. It has been incredibly odd.

I started off the year with far too many trips to the funeral home for someone who isn't in their 70s. Things got weirder on the work front as just when we were thinking things were going smoothly, multiple challenges reared their heads, not least of which was my transfer to a different home (thankfully one I'm familiar with and roughly the same distance to travel to). This has led to a rather challenging, though not altogether unpleasant, fall and I think I'll be going back to my old house ready to kick butt and take names come April.

Julie's been losing weight like nothing else, which makes me feel like I'm going to have to actually get off my butt come the new year so I can catch up... but that might involve eating a vegetable or two, so I'm not quite sold on the idea yet.

And then we've got the kids. Garrett is turning into a jock for some unknown reason (skateboards? hockey? soccer?) and Kara is reading and writing already, almost better than Garrett! They've also become local celebrities, with Kara making the front page of the local paper and both of them singing with our church choir on TV at the end of the year.

I'm sorry that the blog didn't get updated NEARLY enough this year compared to years past. I could admit that I'm just lazy, but I think the blame is mostly on Twitter's tiny shoulders. It's just a lot easier to update it periodically and by the time I sit down to do something on the blog, well, I've already dumped the contents of my brain!

Anyway, I'll try to update the blog more next year. I've got a few writing projects that have been left to rot on the vine over the past year that I need to get back to and keeping the blog going helps keep the writing bug alive!

So with all of that, we're all going to wish you a



I'm off to finish off the year by working an overnight shift. Yippee for me!

The Prince Of Peace... LIVE!

So on Monday of this week, Garrett & Kara went down to Burlington to perform with the church children's choir on 100 Huntley Street. They sang three songs and, according to Garrett, got really nasty headaches from the lights :)

They aired the first of the songs on the broadcast this morning. The kids were pretty pumped to see themselves on TV when they got home from school today!

Garrett was reduced to a floating pair of eyes and some hair for most of this song, but they fixed that by the time they taped the second song (airing later in the week/next week) so that he could actually be seen on camera. Kara, on the other hand, was front and center for all three. Too bad she looks like she's watching a cat get strangled for most of this song :)

Only 2 Weeks To Go!

This is nuts. It's only 2 weeks until Christmas. What happened to the month/year?!?

We've had a few busy weekends with family Christmas parties and shopping. Thankfully we're pretty much finished with the shopping part of things (and to be honest, I haven't noticed maddening crowds compared to the last few years). Garrett has an art show to put on in a week & a half and Kara has her final dance recital next weekend.

Oh, and tomorrow they'll both be performing on 100 Huntley Street with the church children's choir. They're pretty stoked for their chance at fame and glory :)

Staycations Are Nice

Yesterday was my first day back to work after a lovely week long staycation. I watched a lot of TV, played a lot of Skyrim and Zelda and also spent a lot of money getting the cars repaired and ready for winter. It was nice though. I needed a good chunk of time off to just chill after the pretty breakneck pace of the summer and loved having the time to just veg!

Trick Or Treat Complete!

We had one of the best Hallowe'ens in recent memory tonight. The kids got piles of candy (yum) and Garrett met up with a few of his friends and they ended up going down some streets we've never managed to go down while trick-or-treating.

It was helpful that, unlike the last few years, it wasn't raining and the temperature was cool but not freezing. There were an awful lot of people who had put bowls of candy on their porch this year though. I'm shocked that they hadn't been emptied by punk teenagers by the time we went there!

Garrett's Tron costume held up pretty well tonight and Kara got a lot of compliments on her Little Red Riding Hood outfit. Good times!

Costume: Complete!

I've had to spend a lot of time over the past few weeks trying to figure out how to make Garrett's costume for Hallowe'en this year. He's going as Sam from Tron: Legacy (see below) and this was not something I could easily pick up off the shelf. I also had to try to figure out how to make something somewhat shiny so that it would look like he had light shining out of him.



So firstly, I ordered a shirt from the Real Life Comics store that takes care of a lot of the detail on the torso and also glows blue in the dark. For the pants, I took a pair of black windbreaker pants and put strips of blue duct tape and reflective tape on them.



We'll be taking the costume out for a test run on Saturday afternoon for the town Trick Or Treat on Main Street. Hopefully the tape sticks to the pants and doesn't disintegrate!

And A Few More Pictures For Good Measure

Ah, what the heck. Here are a few other pictures from the summer.


Feeding the duckies at the park


Garrett & I found this hockey equipment outside and it fits (mostly).


We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens and Garrett sat on a tuffet...


The Rock Garden at the RBG is awesome. This waterfall was rather pretty.


Can YOU find Kara in this picture?


Soccer season ended with a great day of fun and trophies and pizza.

And last but not least, a few pictures from the first week or school.

From 2011-09-12

Belated Vacation Photo Time!

It has been a little while since I last posted pictures of the kids, so get ready for a deluge o' pics!

We went to Niagara Falls this summer and the kids got up to some trouble. They're making a run for the border on their purloined wheels...



Unfortunately, they ate a bit too much on the way and got stuck in Canada.





They went on a radical diet and now Garrett works for the law, not against it. Kara has gone vegetarian and just eats bark and leaves now.



And lastly, here's a picture of Kara from atop the Tower Of Terror (as I call it) aka The Pink Panther Lazy Balloon Ride (as everyone else calls it).

'Twas The Last Day Of Vacation...

Well, today was an interesting end to the kids' summer vacation. It was kind of nice for Julie & I. Both of the kids spent almost the entire day (9-5ish) outside playing with their friends in this insanely chilly weather and that gave us an chance to just relax inside and veg for the day.

How lazy was it? Well, I beat a game during the afternoon and then sat down to watch the extended cut of The Blues Brothers. And to top it all off, we were able to watch the first chunk of Empire Strikes Back (woo Hoth!) before the kids went to bed. Heck, Garrett was so tired that he didn't even want a story or anything. He just got up, shuffled over to his room at 7:30 and climbed up into his bed on his own volition.

Tomorrow is his first day of school and he's pretty excited. He had a bit of an emotional breakdown after supper when I tried to convince him to let his caterpillar, Sunshine, go free. We reached a compromise where we'd leave the container open on the backyard table and it would be up to Sunshine to stay or go. But other than that, Garrett's pretty excited to have a new class and make new friends.

Kara doesn't start school offically until next week, so that gives me a chance to see her off on the bus for her first day of school proper. She is going for an orientation day this week though but Julie's got that covered.

And now I'm off to get in my last burst of gaming for a bit before I'm off to the cottage to fish, read and play lots of board games for the next few days.

I Eats Me Spinach!

Stay off the lakes, because I just passed my boating safety certification test!

I'm heading up north tomorrow for a 4 day cottage trip for work and part of the preparation for that trip was to try to get my boating license. I still haven't received the e-mail with the copy of the license yet, but hopefully I'll have it in the morning so I can take it up with me.

On the one hand, I'm happy to have the license now as it means I can actually take boats out on the water and not have to worry about a piece of paper.

The downside is that one of the guys I'm taking up on this trip will probably shanghai me and I'll be forced to spend a day or two in a boat while he fishes. I won't lie and say that the idea of failing the test right now didn't cross my mind...

But at least now the option of taking a boat out for a day is there and that's cool.

Happy Belated Birthday Everybody!

While I didn't forget his birthday the other day, I DID forget to put my usual post about his birthday on the site. So happy belated birthday, Dave.

It seems that everyone else around me has had a birthday recently too. So happy birthday to all y'all.

Now go get old somewhere else and leave me alone!

The Star Wars Savings Plan

Well, thanks, Mr. Lucas, for costing your empire $100 from my pocket. I've been cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Blu-Ray release of the Star Wars saga but knew it was too much to hope that Lucas wouldn't mess things up in the original trilogy, AGAIN. A few of the effect tweaks aren't horrendous but he's gone in and changed some of the audio in ways that are just dumb.

How dumb? Let's just say that this clip:


is actually preferable to the changes he made to the film. If nothing else, it's funny! I can only assume that Lucas is the ultimate troll with the way he refuses to release a proper, untampered version of the original 3 movies. That, or he requires internet rage and nerd tears to sustain him.

But yeah, that's $100 I won't be spending this fall. The better to buy more videogames, er, save for the future...

Brock: Destroyer Of Propellers

Next week I'll be heading up to Trout Lake for our annual vacation with work. It's going to be a small crew this year but it'll be fun. I'm in the midst of getting my boating safety license and if I can sink the required time into it today to finish it, I might be able to take a boat out on the lake this year for some fishing.

My only worry is that I'll end up breaking things like I did the two propellers that I smashed last year on our houseboat trip. Sigh. But an outboard motor on a little fishing boat is a little easier to maneuver than a giant houseboat, so I should manage to avoid destroying any boats this year. I hope.

If nothing else, it looks like it'll be a nice week next week and I'm also planning to take up my boardgames, so much Talisman and Ticket To Ride will be played, I'm sure.

Settling In

So today marks the end of my first week working at the new house. It has been a pretty seamless transition, though I'm still experiencing some cognitive dissonance when I go to look for something and it's not where I would normally find it or when I run into a slightly different method of doing things than what I'm used to at the house I've worked at for the past 6 years.

That being said, I think that now that I've had a week to acclimate to the pace and the people at the new house, I'll probably enjoy my stay here much more than I expected to. The people here are much older than the crew I usually support so the energy level is a lot more subdued. I can actually get some work done during the day now instead of being interrupted every 5 minutes with a new question! Yay! The upside of that is that if I can actually get my work done when I have a chance to, I can spend more time out with the guys doing things instead of being cooped up in the office on a never-ending treadmill of paperwork. Huzzah!

So things are going to be ok, I think. I wasn't a huge fan of this transition when it was asked of me a month ago but I know the people here and I know I'm going back to 'my house' early next year, so I think things are going to be pretty swell in the interim. And the change of pace is nice. I get to look out over the escarpment every morning on my way down here which is a little nicer view than downtown Acton :)
---  
What I'm Reading: Ready Player One
What I'm Playing: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deathspank: Thongs Of Virtue 
What I'm Watching: Community: Season 1

It's Been A Slice... But I'll Be Back

So as I hinted at ages ago and have discussed a bit on Twitter, things are changing for me on the work front. Today is my final day working at the program I've been at for the past 6+ years and as of next Monday, I'll be continuing my Program Coordinator duties at a house a little further away. The upside is that I'll still be working with a lot of the same people I do now and the commute is a whopping 10 minutes instead of 5, but I'll manage.

It's weird though. I'd rather stay where I am but I think the change of scenery and new people to support/work alongside will be for the best. I'll hopefully pick up a few new tricks and it will make me appreciate what I've got at my "home" program even more when I come back early next year. And it has been almost embarrassing to see how much people (staff & the guys) have made me feel wanted and/or needed where I am now. They've really come out to back me up and I'll miss my crew while I'm gone.

That said, my schedule at the new place looks almost normal and I think I'll be much more relaxed at the end of each week, of only because I won't have to put in a million extra hours (I hope!).

Now to sit back and enjoy the upcoming weekend(s) and get ready for the new house on Monday.

At Least It's Not Friday...

This song has been stuck in my head all day and I think I'm in a better mood for it. It's really, really silly but man, it makes me chuckle just thinking about it.

As a spoof of the horrifically autotuned Friday, this is awesome. I'm just glad it's a joke song.

"And hide them all in a shed..."

You Want Me To Do What?

Did I forget to mention that this was also a very odd, busy and surreal week at work? After an already busy day, I received a phone call that will make my next 6-9 months very interesting... if I say yes.

And no, we didn't go to the baby store (as Kara insists we should). This is totally a work thing. I'm pretty much going to do it but I'll sleep on it before I committ. Should be an interesting fall/winter though!

Where Am I?

Oh my. I didn't expect that I'd miss updating for an entire month! Yeesh.

Suffice it to say, ever since about mid-July, I've been utterly run off of my feet. I just finished a 17+ hour shift today and probably put in about 50 hours in the last 4 days at work. Yeesh. And one of them was a short day!

The nice thing is that I am officially ON VACATION! We're heading to Sarnia tomorrow (today?) to attend Julie's uncle's wedding and next week we're going to be hitting a hotel in Niagara Falls for a couple of days and doing a few other fun vacation thingies around the GTA and GSA (Greater Sarnia Area).

Woo!

Guess Who's 7 Today!

So today is Garrett's 7th birthday. We made a pretty good day of it and the big party is tomorrow afternoon. He's pretty excited about the Adventurer Training Party (as we've dubbed it) where they'll learn to climb some pretty impressive rock walls at the local climbing gym.

Today was pretty packed too. He got a TRON light-cycle and a Recognizer carrying case for the little die-cast light-cycles and the DS version of Plants Vs. Zombies. We went out for a gourmet breakfast of Egg McMuffins at McDonalds, where the receipt machine went insane and spat out a huge pile of receipts all over the counter that almost buried the poor girl working the cash. You couldn't pay for entertainment like that!

Of course, we did pay for Cars 2 tonight and supper at Boston Pizza. Good times.

Now to get some sleep myself so that I'm a functional human being whilst the festivities are on tomorrow.

Mmm... Mongolian Grill...

It's scary sometimes when a webcomic pegs my personality just right. I think Julie will get a chuckle out of this one.

"That Was The Best Movie Ever, Daddy!"

We all went out to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this afternoon while the storms raged around us. Kara must have really liked it because she told me that it was the best movie ever at least 3-4 times during the course of the movie.

Much like the first one, KFP2 is a really solid kung-fu movie that just happens to have a cast of animated animals instead of humans. And it's pretty funny, though not quite as funny as the original. Great flick though and the animation itself is astoundingly gorgeous.

Quite A Conversation Starter!

I found this book at a rummage sale at one of the local churches today.



I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it. I was telling someone on Twitter that I should have bought it so I could sneak it to peoples' houses when I visit and leave it on their coffee table. Then I could just sit back and watch the show :)

Biohazard!

Soo... I have somehow been given the dubious honour of being one of a handful of people in Ontario to use a very expensive prototype machine at work for the next month.

And I get to expose myself to e.Coli on a regular basis too. Huzzah!

Seriously though, I'm responsible for the water testing at work and we've been chosen as a location to field test a new water quality monitoring system. It's actually very cool tech (I spent a few hours being trained on it today) and I am looking forward to fiddling around with it over the next month.

I just need to be VERY careful about washing my hands when I'm done using it!

Heading To The Zoo, Zoo, Zoo...

I'm heading to the zoo on Thursday with Garrett's class. I'm afraid... very afraid...

At least we'll be able to say hi to Kara's Monkey Mom and Monkey Dad. We're trying to convince her that we picked her up at the monkey cage the last time we visited :)

Inside Garrett's Mouth

This comic over at Penny Arcade is likely what's going on in Garrett's mouth. Why will he never brush his teeth? Sigh.

Ghibli Minecraft

As a huge fan of Miyazaki's body of work and all of the excellent films that Studio Ghibli has put out over the years AND as someone who has spent a fair amount of time tinkering around in Minecraft, this just blows me away.



The sheer amount of time needed to make all of that architecture blows me away, not to mention the attention to detail for most of those sets. Lovely stuff.

Good Thing This Couch Is Comfy

Sooooo.... I picked up an iPad 2 today. I was heading home from a day of writing protocols in Kitchener and had seen that the Guelph Future Shop had them in stock. I figured I'd pop in just on the off chance that they had some and lo and behold, there were 3 left.

Now, I've been having my eye on an iPad 2 for some time. It basically did everything that I'd hoped the first iPad would do but didn't, plus I'd heard a lot of good things about the improved battery, faster processors, etc. Of course, finding one in stock was pretty much impossible and I was broke, so it was a moot point.

But we just got our tax returns back and it was a pretty hefty one this year, so I put aside enough to cover the cost of the iPad should I ever find one and put the rest towards paying off the basement and a few other bills. I just anticipated having a few more months of idly checking Best Buy and Future Shop stockrooms before I'd luck across one of the units!

Suffice it to say, I'm really enjoying the thing so far. Granted, I spent most of tonight setting it up and futzing about with the app layout and synching it with my phone data and such, but it is a very nice piece of tech. I've only just started to plumb the depths of the thing, but I'm shocked by how much content even something as simple as the Weather Network app has packed into it.

But Julie, on the other hand, is none too pleased with me (hence the lovely couch I may be sleeping on for the next while). Granted, I think she'll change her tune once she starts fiddling around with it and watching TV on it, etc. Right Julie? RIGHT?!

Garrett: Roughneck

After a few years of having minimal communication from Garrett's teacher, we were greated with a novella in his planner today. Unfortunately, it seems that Garrett's been a little rowdy on the playground.

He insists that he accidentally pushed a kid down who was walking backwards, blindfolded, while on roller skates, in a snowstorm... I'm trying to say that I'm not sure whether to believe it was an accident when the details shift around more than a stack of bowling balls in an earthquake.

Hopefully it's just your typical playground shenanigans and Garrett will keep his nose clean. He does tend to hang out with a lot of the meaner kids though, so I'm hoping they're not rubbing off on him. He's such a sweet lad :)

A Spoonful Of Yogurt

Kara came down with an ear infection last week and is now on some antibiotics to help get her back to her usual spunky self.

Unfortunately, the medicine tastes like liquid death with a pinch of distilled horror to spice it up. I thought Kara was exaggerating about it being disgusting until I tried a little drop that was on the counter and had to scrub my tongue down to the bone* with a chunk of pumice to get rid of the taste.

After almost having to do a restraint to force the medicine down her throat on Sunday, we've decided to take a different tack: bribery and disguise. The bribery thing is easy: she'll get a little Polly Pocket doll and/or outfit each day that she takes the medicine. She's also able to have one or two chocolate eggs from Easter, which is fine as we have tonnes of those lying around.

We're also mixing the medicine in with apple sauce or yogurt. It still tastes nasty, but it's somewhat diluted by the taste of the snack that it's mixed in and she is able to take a lot of swigs on her juice/water glass to help wash down the vile poison.

So far it's working, though Kara is still not a huge fan of medicine time. And I don't blame her!


* I know that tongues don't have bones :)

BLARF!

Kara is sick... again. She was sick on Thursday and now she's sick again. She hasn't had to throw up since about 4:30 or so, but man, the poor little thing!

Hopefully it's yet another 24-hour bug. At least she has a doctor's appointment tomorrow so we'll see what's going on one way or another.

VGL Wrap-Up

Well, Garrett was very impressed by Videogames Live the other night. The seats were awesome (front row, middle of the balcony) and there were a lot of great performances through the night. I was very impressed by Martin Leung (the videogame pianist) and blown away by the flute skills of Laura Intravia (aka Flute Link).

I'd love it if the show came back to the area again next year. There is a lot of stuff that is the same but they do have enough new content to warrant repeated viewings. And it's just a great concert regardless.

Also, the winner of the costume contest was a guy dressed up as a Lego minifig. The costume was amazing.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Grant!

I did send the guy a message but was out most of Friday, so in case he happens to stumble by here, happy birthday, little brother!

Now if only we could figure out why he keeps moving further and further away from the rest of his loving, caring family :)

VGL

This should be interesting.

I'm taking Garrett with me to see Videogames Live tonight (Wed) in Kitchener. I'm very excited as it's a fantastic concert and I think he'll have a blast. I need to make sure he wears something videogamey!

I'm also interested to see how many tags I can get with my 3DS. So far I've found ONE person in the wild and that was at the Sarnia easter egg hunt. If I don't find very many other people with a 3DS tomorrow night, I won't find them anywhere!

Happy 4th Birthday Kara

Kara turned 4 last week and I was so busy I forgot to post! I'll have to dig up some pictures from last week's string of birthday parties, but suffice it to say, she's very happy to be four now!

Happy Birthday Mom!

My mom is [REDACTED] years old today! Congratulations for making it through another trip around the sun, mom!

Fun Is Work!

Speaking of work that is fun, I've been totally engrossed in this Portal 2 ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that has been going on since the beginning of the month. The reason it is so neat is because there's a chance that, due to a lot of geeks playing a lot of indie games, Portal 2 will be available at least a day earlier than planned! It is supposed to launch on Tuesday but because everyone has been playing a bunch of neat little games on Steam, we'll be able to play it by Monday night if all of the calculations are correct.

I'm sure that's gibberish for most of you, but it's really cool and one of the great things about being a gamer. What other medium will give you a chance to partake of their content early by watching/reading/listening to other movies/books/songs?

Work Is Hard

If you see a few more gray hairs on my head, I think it's because work is out to age me 20 years over the past few weeks. The last couple of days have been the first where I feel like I've got my feet back under me and it's so nice to have a day where I can just cook food and hang out with the guys instead of being buried in paperwork up to my eyeballs.

Not that I don't have paperwork, but the high priority stuff is definately wrangled for the moment. Phew!

It's Still Easier Than Explaining It To My Grandparents

Please check out this epic flowchart detailing how to explain the internet to a 19th century street urchin. It is about 8 kinds of awesome.

And it's pretty funny too.

The Best Worst Thing You'll Hear All Day

If you've been exposed to the virulent strain of earworm that is Rebecca Black's 'Friday', do yourself a favour and watch this video.

At the very least, Colbert & Fallon have managed to wash the sound of the original version out of my brain.

Edit: I give up. Just go on Youtube and search for Friday and Colbert.

Chicks Dig Scars

Garrett & I got to spend about 6 hours or so in the local ER waiting to see if he had any kind of internal damage after he had an unexpected meeting of his stomach and the bare metal end of his handlebars while riding around outside today.



We were a little concerned that the force of the blow and the fact that it took the skin off his stomach (and left it imprinted on the inside of the shirt!) so I drove him over to the hospital after work to have a professional give him a once-over. While we did have an almost 6 hour wait there, they took it seriously enough to do a urine test and ultrasound to ensure that there wasn't any internal injury. Thankfully, it looks like he'll just be tender on his tummy for a bit and have a very odd scar to show to his friends when he's older.

And I have to say, for a kid in some amount of pain and with not a lot to do, Garrett handled the long wait at the hospital like a trooper. He played his DS, my 3DS, my iPhone, read some magazines, flounced about a bit and ate a bunch of junk food from the vending machine with nary a complaint. I think he was more interested in all of the stuff going on through the glass doors into the ward and with all of the people around to realize how dull it was!

To add insult to injury to this whole evening, we got trapped in the parking lot for about 10 minutes when we were trying to leave. On the upside, we didn't have to pay the obscenely high cost for parking ($16 to park for 2 hours? SERIOUSLY?!?) but it was kind of annoying nonetheless.

On A Happier Note...

This has been a bear of a week for me, but tomorrow (today?) is my day off (yay) so I'm finally getting a bit of time to decompress. Despite the insanity of the previous post, the absolute emotional wringer of a day I had on Wednesday at work and the fact that it was year end at work on Thursday and the paperwork was flying furiously, there is a glimmer in the darkness!

Our church had a spectacular opening Sunday on the 27th. Our first service was about 75% capacity in the sanctuary, which holds about 700 people. For the second service, it was standing room only, not to mention all of the people spilling out into the foyer and the coffee shop. Altogether, we had something like 1200 people come to the church on Sunday with 200 kids in the children's area. Woo!

And in a fit of insanity, I had volunteered to help with parking. Here's a still shot of the parking lot from the far edge of the lot to show how many cars there were...



It was a bit packed. We had cars lined up all the way from the cul-de-sac at the end of 10th Line to the lights at Argentia at one point, but we managed to squeeze about 400 or so cars into a lot designed to hold about 300. It was nuts. 3.5 hours of nuts, to be precise, because that's how long I spent outside directing traffic that day! At least the weather was beautiful, though I got a pretty nasty sunburn for my troubles.



Hopefully the coming Sundays will be a little more... sane. We had a lot of visitors, special guests and curious people who likely won't be around on a regular basis, though it would be awesome to have this kind of turn out every week.

I'm just happy that we have a building to call home for the church now. It has been a long time coming and it's like the church is coming into its adolescence now (almost literally, what with the congregation being about 10 years old this coming September) so we have all sorts of new challenges and opportunities to look forward in this new phase of the church's life. Time to sit back and buckle in and enjoy the ride.

Take That, Good Deed Doer!

How I wish this was an April Fool's joke. There is a very surreal thing going down around our neighbourhood and it just goes to show how small a town Acton is.

A week ago or so (during that crazy freak blizzard) one of the people living near us had their dog either stolen or lost from their yard. I'm not sure whether they're exaggerating or not and I honestly don't know why anyone would wait until the nastiest day of the year so far to bother to try to steal their puppy, but that's their story and they're sticking to it.

So they went to the cops, it didn't seem like much would happen but a few days later, it appears that they've retrieved their dog from a supposed breeder or some such. Hooray! Happy end of story.

Except now it seems that one of our friends that lives across town has learned that no good deed goes unpunished. They found a dog on one of the sideroads near Acton and called the local humane society and someone came to take the dog to the shelter. And yes, it was that missing puppy. So the cops have been paying a visit to our good friends and they're worried that they're going to be under the spotlight as suspected dognappers when they were just trying to do the right thing.

And to make things even more crazy, it turns out that the person who came from the shelter to take the dog away is a fake. The shelter has nobody like this on staff. So that's a whole other layer of insanity on this surreal pancake.

Hopefully everything will be fine for our friends and the real dognappers in this case will be caught and/or never stalk the Hills of Halton again, but it sucks that our friends are stuck in the middle for having tried to do the right thing.

Draaaama!

One More Sleep!

Tomorrow is the launch date for the new Nintendo 3DS! I can't wait. I've had mine paid off for at least a month or two and am really excited to see this thing in action.

I'm only getting one game at launch (Pilotwings) but I'm really excited to play around with the Augmented Reality stuff. It looks really slick. And given that nary a day goes by where I don't play my DS, an enhanced version of my favourite game system of the past 5 years is more than welcome!

Garrett's pretty excited to see it too. We love 3D movies and such and it will be neat to see how this works without glasses.

Buggered For Choice: Spring Election Edition

Well, it's election season and I don't think I've felt more blasé about picking a leader for our glorious country. I have been thinking about how none of the candidates inspire me in the least, except to perhaps retch into a corner.

I think that it is a necessary election to have because the Conservatives have basically been flounting the laws of the land AND the niceties of Parliament in such a blatant manner that they need to be held accountable. Even if the outcome of the election is identical to what it is now, at least the Opposition showed that it could actually get its head out of its butt long enough to do its job.

Locally, I like the guy who is running for the Conservative seat and he at least brought some decent bills to the table over the last while, but I don't really want to vote for the Conservatives. The Liberals... the less said about them the better and the NDP have done so many backflips on principle and policy issues that they should be in Cirque De Soleil. As for the Greens, well, I haven't heard a peep out of them in any capacity since the last election so I'd rather not toss my vote into that black hole.

So there's my quandary. Do I vote for the guy who I actually like who is in our local riding despite not wanting to vote for the party he is a member of OR do I play a game of political spin-the-bottle and essentially waste my vote? Not voting is out of the question, but it feels like I'm being forced to make a kind of bizzaro political version of Sophie's Choice.

If I Win The Lottery...

I'll have to build this room for Garrett. Talk about an awesome room!

Home. Sick.

Garrett woke up today with a fever of 102. Degrees. Celcius. Then he exploded.

Actually, it was Farenheit and he did puke a few times while at the sitter's. I was able to get home early (yay) and his fever seems to have broken, but he's now passed out on the couch after watching a bit of Pokémon. Hopefully the worst is over and he'll be all ready for an exciting week of March Break Fun[tm]!

This was kind of nice for me because I got a head start on my vacation. I don't go back until the 23rd!

Time to Share at the Timeshare!

Kara and I went up to Thornbury last week to hang out with my parents and just get away from the hustle and bustle of life in Acton. Seriously though, we had a great time up north, even with Kara being sick one of the days. We went swimming and snowshoeing and drank lots of delicious Ashanti coffee.

There's a great cheese shoppe in Thornbury that had a variety of amazing cheeses I've never tried before. Before I get to my top two, let me just say that they had a cheese that was the unholy, yet very tasty, offspring of a piece of gouda and parmesan. That being said, the best of the cheeses were a couple of cheddars. One was a Guinness cheddar that looks like something you scrape off of the bar at an Irish pub, yet tastes surprisingly mild. My personal favourite was an Irish Whiskey cheddar that was not sharp in the least and had a distinctly whiskey tang to it. Yum!

Anyway, here are a few pictures we took while we were up there. Enjoy!

Local Wildman Spotted At Mall

Check out my dad! He's on the intarwebs!

Now if only I could get the crappy video codec to play in Firefox...

It Speaks For Itself...

Let's see if this makes anyone lose their noodle...

Ribs...

We went out for all-you-can-eat ribs at Montana's yesterday as the capper on our Family Day activities. I think I'm now 90% pork-back ribs and 10% human. Urg...

Canadian Temperature Conversion Chart

Saw this over on Dubious Quality and had to share it.

Official Canadian Temperature Conversion Chart
50 F/10 C Californians shiver uncontrollably; Canadians plant gardens
35 F/2 C Italian cars will not start; Canadians drive with windows down
32 F/0 C American water freezes; Canadian water melts
0 F/ -18 C New York City landlords finally turn on the heat; Canadians have the last cookout
-60 F/-51 C Santa Claus abandons the North Pole; Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door to door
-109 F/-78 C Carbon dioxide freezes into dry ice; Canadians pull down their earflaps
-173 F/-114 C Ethyl alcohol freezes; Canadians get frustrated when they cannot thaw the keg
-459.67 F/-273 C absolute zero; all atomic motion stops; Canadians say “cold enough for ya, eh?”
-500 F/-295 C Hell freezes over; Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup

The BOOth Fairy

Garrett lost another tooth tonight.

From Kids

When Garrett wouldn't get out of Kara's room at bedtime, I told him to get to bed or the evil tooth fairy would show up. Of course, then he had to know everything there is to know about the evil tooth fairy...

So I showed him a clip from Darkness Falls.

Suffice it to say, both kids ran screaming to their rooms before the clip was over and on the upside, it was one of the easiest bedtimes ever. But I did have to tell Garrett that the evil tooth fairy wasn't real and show him a bunch of clips of car chases from The Blues Brothers to get him calmed down :)

#1 Parent Award, I await thee!

THREE DEE ESSSSSSS!

On a happier note, the 3DS has been official priced and dated. I had hoped it would be out on March 20, but I'll wait an extra week from my birthday if I have to. I've already got the money saved up for it and I put $5 down on it last week but today I'll brave the snow to slap more money down and get the thing paid off.

Woot. The DS has been the 'console' that I've played almost every single day for the past 5 years and I'm stoked for the new hardware with the potential for some cool 3D trickery.

What A Week

Things are finally starting to get back to normal.

One of my coworkers was struck and killed by a GO train last Friday afternoon and I found out about it on Saturday morning (if you've been following my tweets, you've probably noticed that last week was kind of wonky).

It has been a rough week at work but all of the staff and the guys attended the memorial service for Elliott on Wednesday and it was a beautiful service that celebrated his far too short life. He was only about 5-6 months younger than me, so it struck home how fast things can change.

But life goes on and we'll remember all of the good thing about the last few years he spent working at CH before the accident. I've been wiped since I'm essentially running the show this week too, which has been a real treat. That said, work is starting to fall back into its old routine and while things aren't really back to normal, per se, it's a lot closer to normal than it has been for the past few days.

I just wish I had the weekend off to relax!

Happy Birthday Julie!

With all of the stuff going on at work this week, I almost forgot to put the birthday announcement up today!

Happy birthday, Julie! Sorry I've been stuck at work all day and didn't get to see you :(

Chili Four Loko - Epic Meal Time

I thought I ate a lot of meat yesterday. I didn't eat nearly enough by these guys' standards.

A Day Of Meatings

What a busy, busy day today was. I had a meeting at work in the morning and then a meeting at night for the condo board. That wouldn't be so bad but this was basically the seventh day that I've worked in the past 8 days (I had Friday off) and I was really hoping that my work meeting was going to be short.

It wasn't.

I was really hoping my condo board meeting was going to be short.

It wasn't either.

That said, unlike many, MANY of the meetings I've sat through in the past, both of the meetings today were quite productive and worth the length of time I sat in them, so it wasn't a waste of a day.

Today was also a day full of meat.

I picked up some WagJag coupons back in November or so for the Hungry Hollow Smokehouse & Grille in Georgetown and was able to use one of them today. Man, oh man, is that place ever great. If you like meat at all, get ye there. I had the Dream Burger, which was a 1/4 pound burger topped with bacon, cheese and a big pile of pulled pork. I had it at around 3 this afternoon and I was still stuffed when I headed over to my evening meeting at 7. The prices are also incredibly cheap. Most of the sandwiches were in the $6-7 range (with sides) and that burger was only about $10. Delicious, delicious stuff.

And the last pile of meat for today came in the form of my dinner which I had when I got home around 10pm or so. We had some leftover pot roast from M&M's this evening and I finished off my day scarfing down that yummy hunk of cow.

Suffice it to say, I've spent most of the afternoon/evening/night in a bit of a meat hangover, but man, it was worth it :)

Now to eat healthly food for the rest of the week. Mmm... triscuits...

Happy Anniversary!

So today was our 12th anniversary. I think that means I was supposed to give Julie silk and pearls. I got her an iPod instead. Does that count?

We didn't do anything terribly special. Garrett was still kind of wiped and pale from whatever bug hit him on New Year's Eve and so we stayed home from church and basically just vegged all day. Julie thought I was sick too, but I was just hanging out with Garrett and watching movies and playing games :)

Not the most romantic anniverary but we did have a nice dinner here at the house and we went out for steak last week in Sarnia, so it'll do. I'll just make sure I take her out somewhere really nice for her birthday :)

Now to get to bed. I just found out tonight that I have work first thing in the morning instead of later in the day. Sigh.