Yes, she is a smartie

So it appears that Evie is a budding theologian.Seems she scoffs somewhat. Maybe she has problems with Original Sin.
And now she moves from deep thought to dancing.

What goes up

Well the chinup bar went up. And then it came down this morning. While I was on it. Fortunately it just slipped a bit, but it was annoying. I need to add some improvements. We've stuck with the program though. Starting the second week and still going. Ooh rah.
Evie was with us a couple of times while we worked out. The first time she got upset when she saw us collapsing on the floor. We had to convince her we were okay. By the end she was laughing at us. We did have one incident of her walking through where we were lighting weights and she ended up with a bruise on her cheek. Honestly we are not child abusers. Evie is really good at being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When does it stop feeling like someone beat me up?

This week Kris and I started working out together in the morning. So far, so good, though I am pretty sore. But not as sore as I was earlier in the week which I believe is a good sign. Part of the problem with exercising before was not having any structure or focus so there was no pressure to keep going. We are doing a program now which consists of at least 1 hour every morning. Working out together has been really good to keep us motivated. We both would have quit earlier if the other hadn't been there. I'm also suprised at how good I feel about getting up early and exercising. It actually wakes me up for the day and I feel ready to work.
An unfinished basement makes a good workout area. All I need to to is install the chinup bar. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend.
Here's Evie!

Skating

So I played a hockey game last night for the first time in about 1.5 years (not including one shinny night). We only had 8 skaters so that meant long shifts and little rest. I knew I was out of shape, but that was painful. But it's the good kind of pain. 'cause I love hockey. It's so convenient this year since it's at Cardel Place which is right next to my place.
You know what else is great? Jeopardy on CBC. I love CBC. I love Jeopardy too. Kris and I watch it most every night. Evie really likes it too. She stands right next to the TV when it comes on.

I forget

In the middle of the night last night I woke up with a great idea for a new blog post. Now I forget what it was about. Another great idea lost because I don't have a wearable computer embedded in my pajamas.
Last weekend was really great 'cause Kelsey came over to babysit and Kris and I got to go out together for what felt like the first time in a long time. Hooray for sisters!

Looks comfy.

Proof

Here it is! The proof that CSI Miami is the worst show ever made. (I couldn't even watch the entire thing).

From the Frontier

That is, White Rock BC. We've had a very good week so far, mostly relaxing, some shopping, some golfing, some sailing, viewing of the white rock and eating of japanese food. I am feeling too lazy to go into details but I thought I should put something here.

Martin Family

So I like to listen to a lot of CBC Radio podcasts. I am definitely a fan of CBC radio and podcasts allow me to listen when I want. Today I was listening to the show Ideas and an interview with Dr. Joseph Martin. I was surprised to hear that he was born in Bassano. It was even more surprising to hear him talk about delivering milk to Duchess. It seems he is part of the Brooks area Martin clan. In fact, he's also my first cousin, twice removed. That is, he's my grandfather's cousin. Turns out he is a neurologist, was the Dean of Harvard Medical School and was the recipient of the Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research. Who knew? Well maybe some of the Martin family that read this that pay attention will know, but I didn't.
If anyone is interested in listening to the podcast it can be found here.
He definitely looks like a Martin.

Ubuntu for teh win

A story from PEI. *Note: This story will contain references to my geekiness. Parents with young children may be advised to turn their faces away.
So we were at the Visitor Information Centre in Charlottetown and they had some computers set up with free access to the internet. I went over to check my email. Of the 3 computers 2 appeared to be running Windows XP, but the third looked different. I took a closer look and too my glee I saw it was running Ubuntu! (Ubuntu is a distro of linux, and quite a good one at that). So I checked my email and everything worked great and I felt quite pleased with the world. But then came the best part. My brother was using one of the other computers and was trying to access Facebook. It wasn't working. I went to the Facebook website on the ubuntu computer and it worked great! Victorious!
Later on I saw a couple of older ladies trying to use the ubuntu computer and seeming to have trouble. I thought they should have a good experience with it so I came over to see if I could assist them. They told me they were trying to get to an address. Unfortunately they had open a text editing program (not so useful for internet access.) I started firefox and showed them where they could enter the address. However the ladies didn't seem to be quite up on the whole internet thing as one entered her email address into the browser bar. Since it was hotmail I helped out by taking them to the hotmail website and letting them know they could put the username and password in and then get their mail. Unfortunately they had no idea what the password was. Oh well. 1 out of 2 is pretty good.

PEI is over

We are back from our trip to PEI. All in all it was quite enjoyable. If you're out of the loop we went out there for my youngest brother's wedding. It was the first time Evie had been on a plane and I was pretty nervous about how the flight would go. I am happy to report that she travelled very well. We flew through Toronto and the only time she was upset was in the last 10 minutes. 10 minutes out of 6 hours is pretty good. WestJet was a good experience. The TVs in the back of the chairs was nice since Evie gets pretty mesmerized by Treehouse.
We stayed at a cottage with my brother and his wife and child. The girls are 2 months apart in age so they seemed to really enjoy playing together. They sort of fight a little, taking each others toys and using each other to stand up, but that was just cuteness. They were also pretty much on the same schedule as far as eating and sleeping went so we were able to do most things together.
We toured most of the island. Sunday we didn't have our rental car yet but we all piled into my brothers car and drove 20 mins to Dalvay by the Sea, a Victorian-style hotel that is known as the White Sands Hotel in the Anne of Green Gables movie. We toured a little and went to the beach there and were joined by Damon and Sarah and Mom and Dad and Kelsey. The girls really enjoyed the beach. They crawled around in the waves and tried to eat the sand.
Monday we headed out to Cavendish and visited the Green Gables house. The scenery around there was beautiful, though it was much more touristy than the area we were staying. But you have to go there when you're in PEI.
Tuesday Mom and Dad and Kelsey came over to babysit while the four of us went back to Dalvay for a lunch. It was an excellent meal. Then we all headed out to East Point, the easternmost point of the island. It was pretty cool seeing the point where the gulf of st lawrence meets the northumberland strait. You can actually see a line in the water. We stopped at Basin Head beach on the way back and were joined by Damon and Sarah. There we experienced the 'Singing Sand', which was actually just sand that squeaked when we walked on it.
Wednesday we went to Charlottetown. We had brunch at a place called Cora's. It was quite good, with heapings of fresh fruit with the breakfast meals, except the Evie decided to throw a fit which made it a little stressful. We headed to the Visitor Information Center which had a museum in it called Founder's Hall. It was an excellent museum on Canadian Confederation. We learned a lot that we never picked up in school. I highly recommend it. We then went down to the Province House which holds PEI's legislature and the room where the confederation delegates met. We also visited St. Dunstan's Basilica which I think is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The outside was sandstone and the inside was immaculate with soaring ceilings and stained glass. It totally gave a sense of awe standing inside. That evening Kris and my sister-in-law went to Anne the musical while my brother and I took the girls home to bed. Then we saved the world from robot aliens. Okay, we played video games.
Thursday we went back to Cavendish to go to Avonlea Village. Mom and Dad and Kelsey and Corey came too. Then we headed off to West point where we spent some more time at a beach and ate dinner at a lighthouse.
Friday we went to Charlottetown again for the wedding rehersal dinner (which was quite good) and we were able to tour some historic houses, Beaconsfield and Government House. Rehersal was also that night and we had all the Ramer family that was on the island over to our cottage for a BBQ.
Saturday was the wedding which went off without a hitch. Unfortunately we forgot our camera at the hotel so didn't have many pictures. The reception included a last-minute Ramer skit which seemed much more last minute and thrown together than most. But I think it was enjoyed anyway. So now all the brothers are married. That leaves Kelsey, but she doesn't need to get married any time soon. :)
Sunday we flew back in the evening so we had time to take a boat tour of the Charlottetown Harbour. As an amazing concidence at the airport I met a friend I hadn't seen in at least a year.
So on the downside we had borrowed Kris's Mom's camera to try it out, but the whole week was pretty much over before I found out that it was set to low resolution mode. 400+ pictures at 800x600. Booooo! Still Evie and her cousin were pretty cute.

Whaaaaaa??????

Sorry for those of you that follow this blog and aren't interested in hockey.
Bertuzzi is now a Flame?? That is crazy. I feel torn. On the one hand I haven't really been a fan of Bert since his sucker-punch incident. But he has been a skilled player and could work well with Iginla. His play has struggled lately but maybe played with an all-star is what he needs to get back on form. It's a 1-year deal for $2 million so if he has a standout year this could be a steal. Still, it could be hard to cheer for him.

I survived! So far...

Another bachelor week almost over. I even managed to cook every night, rather than order pizza. Of course I use the term "cook" rather loosely. I used to be fine with my cooking when I was in university, but now I have gotten used to good cooking again so mine is less appreciated.
Just over 1 week until we fly out to PEI. I must say I am getting a little bit nervous about the flight with Evie. I gotten a bunch of Dora and Sesame Street podcasts to keep her entertained, but 7 hours in the air is a long time. I will be glad when we are finally there.

Tagged

It appears I have been tagged. I suppose I will participate. It kind of feels like one of those chain email forwards, but Lindsay's items made me laugh so I feel it is now my duty to continue. Here's the deal:

The idea is to share six unimportant things about myself and then to tag six other people to do the same thing.

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry

1. I become obsessed with small things to the point of nerdiness. For example, the License Plate Game. I'm still going strong. Everyone else I know has given up.
2. I have spent the last 27 1/2 years getting flabby and lazy. Starting tomorrow, exercise every morning! (or maybe the next day).
3. I have a very hard time sleeping Saturday nights.
4. I hate the taste of coffee.
5. My feet get very hot at night. See number 3.
   
6. If you ask me to, I'll probably set up your home computer/network. I just like doing it.
   

Okay, I shall tag Lakin, Alex, September, Kris, Nate, and Mal (you don't have a blog but I think you should. You could post in the comments if you'd like).

a title

This was a pretty good week. I was able to hang out and watch the Stanley Cup final games with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. Having Evie has kept us pretty busy. So it was really great to hang out and watch hockey and talk.
So Detroit wins the cup again. They were the better team. It is good to see the Cup back in a real hockey city, not Tamba Bay or Anaheim. I also think that losing will be good for the Penguins in the long run. I think they need to learn how to play together as a team better and not just rely on their skill to bail them out. Next year they will probably be much stronger.
Well this weekend is the Rodeo weekend in Brooks. That means the annual rollerblade/pancake breakfast/parade. It should be a busy weekend.
Here's my cutie:
Here's a few more pics:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/messages/viewthumb/8390483290-1212726870-20591/parm/page/1/15/

loss of weekend

So there was a big deadline at work so I was obliged to work late friday night and on saturday. Kris went out to Duchess friday for the week so I am spending a bachelor week. On the plus side I was able to go to the driving range today. On the minus side I am carless so I had to walk. Fortunately it wasn't too far away so it only took about 20 mins.
There's probably lots else I could talk about but I am not feeling overly writable. If anyone who reads this is going to Brooks next friday night I am hoping for a ride.

No writsey

Once again, my apologies for the lack of writing.
So the long weekend was fun. After a week of bachelorhood and late nights at work it was really great to relax. I got a ride home with my uncle the nabob. It is much more enjoyable to have someone to talk to on the drive, rather than staring blankly at the road. Mostly we just relaxed outside while the kids played in the sprinkler to beat the sudden heat. We visited my brother one evening and Evie got to play with a certain cousin who steals her toys. ;) It was cute. Evie and I spent an afternoon with my parents and she didn't even really cry. Yay! It's good to see her warming up.
So in other exciting news, I was mentioned on a podcast again! The may podcast from Zunior.com to be precise. He didn't say my full name, just my first, but I have the emails to prove that it was me he was talking about! At a podcast mention rate of once per year, I may yet be a pod-star. Anyway, Zunior.com is an online music store. They sell most albums for only 8.88 and they are in mp3 or flac format (lossless so higher quality) which means no DRM! Yaaay! They have mostly Canadian Indie music which is pretty fantastic nowadays. Check 'em out. You could start with Feist or maybe Wintersleep, but there's much more. It's a good way to fill up that 160 GB ipod...
I'll add some new Evie pics soon.

What do you write

It seems I have fallen off the updating bandwagon. Last week Damon and Sarah stayed with us the evening before her flight back to PEI. It was nice to see them briefly. Hard to believe the wedding is less than 3 months away. We have our plane tickets booked finally. I did some playing with Google Maps and found it very useful for plotting out our destinations.
We were gonna head back to Duchess for the weekend, but most everyone in Kristin's family were sick and we wanted to avoid that. Hope your bachelor party went well Damon!
We ended up taking Evie to the Zoo. That was a fun time. Evie did pretty well, even if she was more interested in people-watching than animal watching. There's a brand new elephant building that for some reason has a pool with rays swimming in it. The highlight for Kris was me spilling water all over her. So we got ice cream.Also that morning we went to the CBC/Calgary Reads Used Book sale. It was pretty great. We got a large pile of books for Evie and some books for ourselves. I remember as a child Mom coming home with piles of books from a garage sale. I hope Evie loves to read too.

The week that was

This was a pretty crazy past week. It started out promising with the Flames winning to force a game 7, but later that night we got a message about Kristin's cousin. He had surgery over the weekend and seemed to be recovering okay when suddenly he slipped into a coma. The doctors had no idea what was going on and the situation was very serious. On Tuesday I was able to visit him in the hospital. It seemed so surreal to see him lying in the ICU and remembering the last time I saw him when he was running around playing. It puts things like hockey into perspective when you are dealing with life and death.
Near the end of the week the doctors figured out what happened and were able to bring him out of the coma. He is pretty weak, but was able to finally get out of bed and into a wheelchair. He had a lot of people praying for him and I believe he is being healed.
Kris took Evie out to visit friends a couple of times this week so I had some evenings off. It was good to have some time to sit down and figure out what would be happening in PEI this summer for Damons wedding. I booked plane tickets and a hotel so it is really happening. I spent all Saturday with Evie as Kris was out most of the day and evening. That was nice as I hadn't really seen much of her the previous few days.
Hopefully the coming week will be a little calmer.
Evie sure is cute when she's eating
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/8390439858-1209336421-35894/

Snowed In!

Yesterday it snowed and melted and kept snowing and freezing and now the roads in Calgary are a mess. Apparently between 6 pm and 6 am last night there were over 200 accidents. Yikes! I'm glad I got home early. But now the question is, can we even leave our house?
Well, we did and we survived. On Saturday we went to Mal and Gin's for Kelsey's Birthday Extravaganza. Mom and Dad and Corey came too. It was an excellent evening. Sunday we went to the Farmer's Market for some baby food supplies. Tonight is game 6. I am nervous, yet also tired. Now that you are up to date you may resume your life. Here's a more interesting picture:

less unbelievable

Well....the series isn't over yet.

So Evie has started trying carrots now. She seemed pretty confused at first, but seems to have taken to them. Or so I'm told. I tend to be at work when Evie is eating. Stupid work. Today is her 6 month birthday! Also, Happy Birthday Kelsey! Friday is 6 month vaccinations. I get a tetanus booster shot. Hooray!?