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This post is more so I can remember that this happened than anything else. Got my first (?) ace today while out golfing with JK at lunch. It was on hole 1 in Kanata from the red tee. It was a forehand throw and I used my Hawk, which I haven't used in a really really long time. Why the red tees? Well JK and I (and sometimes Dave) go out and play the Kanata course quite a bit at lunch time and since it is only a 9 hole course, we play each hole from the blue tee and also the red tee. Why the question mark up next to first? Well I can't remember if I've ever gotten an ace before. While you'd think I might remember such a thing happening - you would be wrong, since I have a horrible memory. There is some speculation that I may have aced the original hole 4 at JC Park way back when, but nobody is really sure. Anyways, just wanted to make sure I mark it down somewhere so it's recorded for the history books. :)

Thanks to discgolfen2005 for the photo. I thought I had some photos in my own photostream that I could use, but it turns out I haven't been doing a good job of tagging my DG photos.

The second Saturday of our vacation saw us leaving PEI and driving directly to Dartmouth, NS which is where my brother Sean and his family are living. They've been there for a few years now and we had yet to visit them (and if you think that's bad - we've been in Ottawa for 9 years now and they haven't come to visit us either) so we took advantage of the fact that we were only 3.5 hours away with no set plans in place. Rather than drive back to Fredericton after our week in PEI, we turned left instead and headed to Halifax. Unfortunately our stay was VERY short, with us arriving at around 1500 on Saturday afternoon and leaving around 1130 on Sunday. In that time though we got to see their house, wander around the Halifax harbour with Liam (he even got to see Theodore Tugboat), grab a bite to eat at Jack Astors and just hang out. Sean and I even fit in a short 45 km ride on Sunday morning before we hit the road for the drive home. It was really great to get the opportunity to visit, and I hope we can do it again sooner rather than later. Actually, I'm still trying to convince them that Ottawa would be a great place for them to move to. :)

Amy, Liam and I headed back east for a couple of weeks at the end of June. The main purpose of the trip was to head to PEI so that we could help carry out my mom's last wishes and scatter her ashes in the ocean just off of Stanhope, PEI.

We decided the best way to get there would be for Amy and Liam to fly home (so we wouldn't have to endure 12 hours in the car with an unhappy 2 year old) and I would drive so that we would have a way to get around when there. That worked out really well actually, or at least from my perspective it did...Amy may say differently - I think the plane ride was tough for Liam and sadly it was fully booked so that mean he had to sit on Amy's lap the whole time. Quite a difficult feat since she is 8 months pregnant. Anyways, we all made it back to NB safe and sound.

I've recently noticed new ads for Dos Equis beer. The commercials are fairly clever, featuring an older guy (the most interesting man in the world) who's done it all, with phrases like, "His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body." The commercials all end with this guy saying, "Stay thirsty my friends." The first time I heard that, and every time since I've thought to myself that it is a strange slogan. I guess what they are trying to say is to stay thirsty so that you'll always want to drink Dos Equis, but for some reason when I hear it, it makes me think that Dos Equis leaves you feeling thirsty. :)

I can't recall if I've actually tried this beer or not, but I think I may have had a little sample at the Beer Store the other day. I like all beer (don't think I've tried a beer I haven't liked) so I normally just buy whatever is cheapest. :) Anyways, check out staythirstymyfriends.com for a closer look at this guy.

Way back when, Boris told me about something called RSS and showed me how I could use it to bring information to me, instead of having to go out and look for it myself. It took a while, but eventually I 'got it' and started amassing RSS feeds from all over the place - starting with my friends' blogs, and then later finding feeds from newspapers, tech blogs, and even Environment Canada (for local weather updates).

I tried different desktop clients as my RSS aggregator (or reader) for a while, but then eventually found out about, and started using exclusively, Google Reader. I love it, and one of the things I like best about it is 'Shared Items' - both being able to share with my friends as well as being able to see what they are sharing. Even better, with some recently introduced features, I can even add a note to items that I share to explain why I'm sharing them. FriendFeed takes this one step further and allows you to have conversations (in the form of comments) back and forth about shared items. I signed up for FriendFeed and have it aggregating some of my stuff (Flickr photos, Google Reader shared items, and Twitter posts) but since nobody else I know is using it - I'm not really making use of it all that much. My FriendFeed feed is here.

Anyways, if you're not using Google Reader yet - I highly recommend it. My shared items page can be found here and there is even an RSS feed for them - although if you've got me listed as a contact in your gmail, then you'll automatically have a feed for my shared items anyways.

Just over two years ago I bought a new road bike and if I had to guess, I'd say I've probably put somewhere around 2000 kms on it. In all that time, I've never got a flat tire. Well unfortunately that all changed this past Sunday. I was out for a ride, by myself, on the back roads around Stittsville. The plan was to do 60 kms - and I came close to that. I was on my way home from a there and back route, when I noticed that my bike was feeling a bit weird - riding much rougher than it normally does. I immediately suspected a flat and when I slowed down, sure enough that's what it was. I know exactly when it happened (I remember the bump my back wheel took) but I have no idea what caused it. Was it a large rock that I somehow missed with my front wheel but hit with my back? A pothole perhaps? No idea.

I had about 8.5 kms to go when this happened, so luckily I had completed just over 50 kms of the 60 kms I had hoped to do. I didn't have a lot of options at this point because although I had an extra tube, and the tools to make the change - I didn't have a pump or any other means to inflate the new tube. D'oh! Walking that distance in cycling shoes would be absolute insanity, so luckily I had brought my cell phone with me. I just called up Amy and asked her to come get me, which happily she did. Lesson learned - if you're going out alone, make sure you have the means to inflate your tires should the need arise. I'd rather not have to carry a pump so instead I'll be looking into CO2 cartridges. Steve first told me about them a while ago, and I confirmed with Grant that you can get them at MEC so I've added that to my list of things to do/get before my next solo ride.

Anyways, like I suggested in my post title, perhaps I was just due for a flat. :)

This past Saturday, JK, Dave and me spent about 4 hours playing disc golf. We started out the day (late morning) with a round at Camp Fortune where we filmed the majority of the holes - well the drives anyways. The bugs were brutal which took away some of the enjoyment of the game, but by the end of the round I had managed a personal best +6 for the course so I was pretty happy. After our round at CF, we headed to Jacques Cartier Parc and played another 18 holes there. Not sure what it is, but I always seem to play better at JCP if I've just played at CF. I ended up with another personal best of -1 for that course. All in all a pretty fantastic day of DG for sure! Really looking forward to our DG trip to Syracuse in the middle of June.

I applied the 10.5.3 update last night to both my iMac and my MacBook. One of the big issues that I was hoping would be addressed was the stability of the wifi connection on the macbook - ever since I got the thing, it randomly drops its connection to the AP on my network. In the release notes for the update, it did mention some improvements to 802.1x stability and reliability but alas - I have not seen any such improvements since updating. I am still seeing random drops of my wifi connection. :(

The other bummer is the fact that they updated Address Book to allow syncing with your gmail contacts, but it only seems to be available to those who have an iPhone. Huh?!

I went out to lunch the other day to a place called Phu Yen, in Kanata. I think the food is great there (which is why we keep going back), and you always get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal. Mine said, "You have enough energy and enthusiasm for two people." I had to chuckle, especially since I had just read this comic the other day at xkcd.com.

Or perhaps I should say are doing it again. Frigtards!

That is all.