Archive - 2007

I've never embedded a youtube video on my blog before, but this one was just way too awesome not to share! I first heard about this one from TechCrunch. The video later got taken down because some photographer, Lane Hartwell, complained about one of her photos being used in the video. Anyways, it's back in its current form without said photo. Check it out!

Nothing says Christmas party like a soak in a hot tub right? Ok, maybe not, but it is a great way to spend a cold December night. We were over to Greg and Alyssa's place on the weekend for a pre-Christmas get together and as you can see in the photo to the left, JK, Dana, myself and Grant took advantage of the fact that Greg and Alyssa have a hot tub at their new place. As a matter of fact, I think we've used it more than they have! We weren't the only ones who ventured out to the tub, just the first. Trev, Julie, and Greg also enjoyed some time in the warm water. JK and I were the only ones brave enough to try rolling around in the snow though - as you can see from this photo.

I went into Donnelly Kia today for service for the second time. I had previously gone in to get "Service 1" (basically an oil change) done on my new Kia Rondo, and this time I was told that based on my mileage (13000 Kms) I should get "Service 2" done. What is "Service 2" you ask? Well it's essentially another oil change, plus a bunch of "inspections" - translation: a really expensive ($119.95 plus tax) oil change! I basically paid them a bunch of money to tell me what I already knew - my practically brand new car is in great shape. Duh!

I've just been looking through my online statement for my Mastercard, checking out what our recent trip to Syracuse actually cost us. Unfortunately I got a bit of an extra shock (in addition to being shocked by how much was spent) when I noticed that despite the fact that the Canadian dollar was higher than the yankee dollar when we were there, purchases we made using our Mastercard ended up costing us MORE in Canadian dollars than the US price. WTF?!

Just this past weekend we (Amy, Liam and I) took a trip, along with the Keans (John, Dana, David and Daniel) to Syracuse, NY. The purpose of the trip was to do some shopping, and take advantage of the high Canadian dollar. Truth be told, the trip was already planned before the dollar sky-rocketed and that just turned out to be an unexpected bonus.

It has been a while since I posted anything, that's for sure - but I'm finding it difficult to make time for things like blog posts these days. It seems if I'm not at work or chasing Liam around then I'm desperately seeking sleep. I stopped running a while back (while I was fighting off a cold) and have been meaning to get back into it but that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps that is contributing to my feeling of everlasting exhaustion.

I was looking around on Google Maps the other day, down around the area of Haggerty's Cove, and I noticed a rather glaring error. Check it out for yourself and see if you can spot it. Anyways, I sent an email off to the folks at Google to let them know about it and I finally heard back from them today. They told me that they source their map data from NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas and to contact them directly. So I did. I just went to the NAVTEQ site and found the same error and submitted a correction request. I attempted to submit a correction request to TeleAtlas as well but they basically didn't have any real data on NB at all. Anyways, we'll see if anything ever comes of it.

We're going through a tough time right now. Sadly my mom died back on October 4th. It happened quite quickly - from the time of diagnosis (cancer) to her death was only a month. We got to spend a lot of time with her during that last month and I'm grateful for the time we had. I'm not sure I really want to say much about it right now, but I wanted to capture the obituary that my dad wrote, which is posted on the York Funeral Home website, just so I have it preserved if and when they take it down.

Since I've been back to work (from parental leave) I've been trying to cycle in as much as possible. Unfortunately I don't get as much chance as I'd like to (I'd cycle every day if I could) since dropping Liam off at daycare necessitates me driving on those days. Better one or two days a week than none though I guess.

Here are some observations I've made during my commute to/from work on the bike:

A lot of drivers just don't know how to deal with a bike on the road. Some are overly aggressive (angry that they have to share the road I guess) and some are overly 'polite' to the point of disregarding the rules of the road by trying to give you right-of-way when you shouldn't have it. Both of these types of drivers drive me nuts - and I think more-so the 'polite' drivers! Of course I'm not that surprised, a lot of people have a hard enough time following the rules when simply sharing the road with other cars so...

Ok, so I'm a little late with this post - turns out he's been walking now for at least a month...and probably more (my memory is brutal!). I don't have a video this time (well actually I do have a video, I just haven't converted it and uploaded it to my server) so you'll have to use your imagination. He's gotten quite good and his balance has improved immensely but he still falls quite a bit. Luckily he's a good 'faller' so he doesn't normally hurt himself. Of course what this means is that we're getting even less rest now since he's always on the go (prefers to walk rather than crawl of course) and we have to chase after him.