Hey what's this? Why it's an old blog! *dust, dust, dust* Hey I think it still works.
So most any of you should know that Kris and I are expecting our second child. The ultrasound last week revealed the gender. I know some people like suprises so I won't say it here directly, but you can click on this link to see the results. Exciting!
Also, after a long hiatus I am exercising again. I now can barely move.
A quick return from obscurity to show off this xkcd comic that I think is awesome. I so often wish I could do this. Foiled by my Mennonite roots.
xkcd might be the best webcomic ever made. What it lacks in art it makes up for in humour.
Sorry folks. I failed your requests. No laser sharks, no signatures. Its a Small World was closed for renovations.
So yes, I did make it to Disneyland, though only for 3 hours. That was only enough time for a few rides and see most of the park. And yes, it is a magical place. Disney is very commercial but they do a good job, so you can't really fault them. Pirates of the Caribbean was fun, though Jack Sparrow appeared to be everywhere. Star Tours was pretty corny. It's definitely an experience that would be great for kids.
The class that I went to was pretty good. The instructor was very knowledgeable and knew what he was talking about. Before I went home I was able to spend a couple hours on the beach. It was 25 degrees C on Friday which was very nice. Quite a difference coming home to a freezing wind, though at least the temperature wasn't too low.
It's nice to be back. Evie is cute as ever, though she's been battling sickness for the past couple of weeks. Tonight she threw up in my arms. Awwwww! But I can't complain because Kris has dealt with the worst of it. Seems Evie saves up her worst sickness for when I'm away.
Apologies for the 3 months without an update. I seem to go through spells where I don't want to write anything.
I am in Santa Ana, CA this week on a training course. Going well so far. I'll give more details later. I'm trying to find good things to see in the evening so if you have a suggestion, leave a comment!
So I sat on my glasses this past weekend. Snapped a small thread right off. Because they are titanium they couldn't be soldered. The lesson is: Don't buy titanium glasses. Or don't sit on them. Or don't place them on a bed that you will sit on.
So until I can figure out a solution or get some new glasses *shudder* I am left with wearing contacts or my old glasses. As I am not allowed out of the house in my old glasses I am left with contacts. My eyes are still adjusting, though better than I thought they would. It's funny how glasses that I wore for so long look so funny on me now. Evie wouldn't even come to me when I was first wearing them. She just stared at me warily.
If you are a Homestar Runner fan, you should love this. If not, you will probably be perplexed.
Here's some context.
Evie is one year old already. This past year has gone by so quickly, yet oddly at the same time it has been very slow. Evie's a very active little girl now. She almost runs everywhere she goes. Kris has been at her Mom's house for a week and Evie has really seemed to enjoy the constant activity, the kids to play with and the space to explore. She's also starting to throw tantrums, but fortunately they are the quieter variety. She just flops on the floor and rolls over, giving her sad face.
It's been a while since I posted pictures so here you go:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/
It's late and I can't sleep. Well, it's not really that late, but since having a child being up past 10 seems late. Also getting up at 6:30 to work out makes it seem late. Anyway, I can't sleep. So I am here with the internets. For the past week and a half I have been working at home. My company was moving to a new office that wasn't ready yet and we had to leave the old one so I set up in the basement. It was really nice not having to commute, but I did miss seeing the daylight. I think Evie enjoyed her "basement daddy."
One really sweet thing about her is when I come home or come upstairs she gets so excited to see me. She makes her mouth into a little o (the classic Evie face) and sometimes claps her hands. She likes to show me things, like a new toy cell phone she was playing with; the first thing she did was show me how it worked. She even seems to try to explain it, in her babbling talk. I really love her.
Today we moved into the new office which is pretty nice. It's got lots of windows so its really bright. Makes up for the basement.
Hmmm, now it is much later. Good night.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Here it is! The proof that CSI Miami is the worst show ever made. (I couldn't even watch the entire thing).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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