Archive - Mar 2008

So Steve is finally back from his epic cycling journey across New Zealand (incidentally, if you are interested - check out his blog for his day by day journal entries) and luckily we had a chance to swing by and see him and Jody this weekend before Steve shaves off his crazy beard. I'm not sure what Steve's original plan was when he set out on his journey, but after seeing a few photos of him just a few days / weeks into the trip, I was very impressed with the beard he had grown. I'm sure one of the reasons I was so impressed is because I definitely couldn't grow a beard anywhere near as impressive - even with twice or three times the amount of time, but I digress...

I encouraged him to keep it going, but sadly about a month (maybe more) into the trip he decided to shave it off. I expressed my disappointment and encouraged him to start again - this time without any trimming whatsoever. You see, at the time I was reading a book that Amy had given me for Christmas titled The Year of Living Biblically and the author had immersed himself into the bible, trying to follow it literally for a year. One of the rules was that he wasn't able to cut his hair (or shave his beard) and his beard was damn impressive! Anyways, I saw the same potential in Steve so I told him to go for it! And he did! You da man Steve!

I must say - it's even more impressive in person. Liam really liked it too - Steve even let him feel it which made him laugh. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to give it a try, but like I already said - I don't think I could come close to producing the face fungus that Steve managed in just a couple of months.

Welcome back Steve!

Amy just got back from a trip to Syracuse. While she was down there, I asked her to pick me up an AirPort Express at the Apple store. I could have ordered it online, but even with the Nortel EPP discount it was still more expensive than buying it in the states. Argh! Anyways, Amy was kind enough to buy it for me and smuggle it back into Canada. :)

Funny side story about Amy's experience in buying this thing for me: She went into the store with a printout of the webpage I had sent her to show her what to pick up. She said, "I have no idea what this is, but do you have these?" and showed the guy the printout. His eyes lit up and he responded with, "Yes, and it does everything you could want it do!" To which Amy replied, "You mean it'll vacuum and clean my house for me?!" The guy sadly didn't get the joke.

Anyways, I've unboxed it, plugged it in and tried it out. It's frickin' awesome! The only reason I bought it was for the 'air tunes' or iTunes music streaming - the plan being to have an easy way to pipe music to the back yard for when the deck is built (or being built I guess). True, I could have just used my old squeezebox but this thing integrates so seemlessly with iTunes that I just couldn't resist. Instead of having to use a web interface to control the squeezebox, I can use iTunes on any of my computers (including the new MacBook that is on the way) and I get all the great features like Party Shuffle! The other great thing is that iTunes allows you to output to both the airport express AND the local computer simultaneously which means I wont have to miss any tunes if I go from inside to out or vice versa. Awesome! I've only played with it very briefly so far, by using the speakers I've got plugged into the iMac, but I'll be heading to future shop sometime in the next few days to pick up a set of speakers (and subwoofer) to be used exclusively with this thing. I did a quick check and it looks like I can get a decent set for like $40 so... I'm psyched!

Well so far the "boy's weekend" has gone really well. We got up this morning and headed to the Goulbourn Rec Centre for Liam's swimming class. That went relatively well, although Liam was a bit clingy at first - but by the end of the half hour lesson he was smiling and laughing. He especially liked the little slide. At the end of our lesson we saw JK and Daniel at the pool - they were there for Dianiel's swimming lesson which is during the half hour time slot after Liam's. My only comment about the swimming experience is that I think the men's changeroom is too cramped which really sucked when it came to getting Liam changed back into dry clothes. Oh well.

We headed home after swimming and Liam got a bath and then I took a shower. Shortly after I got out of the shower, JK called me and asked if we wanted to join them for some pancakes and maple syrup out at Fulton's Pancake House. Sounded like fun so we jumped back in the car and headed northwest until we got there. It was quite busy and as a result there was a long lineup to get into the restaurant. Once we got inside and ordered our food, then we had to find a place to sit. Eventually JK tracked down a part of a table for us. Liam really enjoyed the pancakes and sausages and I thought they were very tasty too. The maple syrup helped of course. After lunch, we went for a short sleigh ride before heading back home. That is where we are now, with Liam napping and me writing this post.

Well I finally broke down and decided to purchase a MacBook. I've been wanting one for a while now, and with a recent bonus at work I decided that I could finally afford it. I made the final decision this morning while chatting with a guy at work. I was telling him that I was considering holding off until June because I had heard they were going to be updated then. He made a good point saying that it really doesn't matter when you buy it - shortly after they will come out with something 'better' anyways. It was a good argument, and one that Boris had made last time I talked to him (I think anyways, that conversation is a bit blurry). So - the purchase was made and now I'm playing the waiting game...

...and I'm the winner! In case you're wondering, Oscar is one of our cats and he and I have been battling for quite some time. It was only a matter of time until I beat him really cause come on - he's a cat and I'm a human! What were the battles about? Well a long time ago we took to locking the cats in the basement for the night so that they didn't annoy the hell out of us in the morning whining to get fed at 0600. We've got a cat hole to the basement which means we had to block it off to prevent the escape of the cats. For a while we used a baby gate that is also used to close off the kitchen / family room - it was mounted in such a way that it could be swung over to block the door to the basement as well (great suggestion by Amy when I was mounting it) thereby serving two purposes, keeping Liam in the kitchen / family room or keeping the cats in the basement. As I mentioned, this worked for a little while, but eventually became ineffective.

Over time the locking mechanism (the one used to control the width) on the baby gate didn't hold as well as it probably should. Given that the gate is at a weird angle when it is blocking the basement door, and that it only slips less than a centimetre, I can't complain too much about it. Anyways, that one centimetre slip is enough that the pressure fit holding the gate in place loosens enough that Oscar can squeeze his way out of the cat hole into the space between the door and the gate and then jump over the gate to freedom. I don't think Sophie was ever able to do it though - or maybe she just didn't care enough. Anyways, bottom line - he was able to get out and start annoying us again. Not good.

In case you haven't figured it out by the title of this post - we found out yesterday that our second child will be a girl. Check that, there is a 90% change it will be a girl - they wont give you a 100% certainty, but the technician was pretty certain. This came as somewhat of a shock to both Amy and me. I'm still adjusting to the news...I'm just not sure how I'm going to be able to handle having a girl. I've heard this many times before, but it really didn't ring true until yesterday - now instead of having to worry about just one prick, I have to worry about all the other pricks in the world. :)

Seriously though - this is going to be an adventure for sure. Lets hope she's tough cause I have a feeling that Liam will be less than gentle with her.

I see that Safari 3.1 was released today. The articles I've read say that it is blazingly fast. I've downloaded it onto my work laptop and will likely see the update ready to install on my mac when I get home. I've been using Safari on my mac for a while now (having switched back from using Firefox) because it IS fast, especially in the time it takes to first fire up. On my mac, I click Safari and not a half second later the window is open and loading the home page. Conversly, using Firefox, even the new Firefox 3 Beta 4, it takes quite a few seconds to fire up initially. It's a different story on my work laptop (a windows machine) and on it I continue to use Firefox.

One of the things that really bothers me about Safari, and it seems to be this way on both the mac and windows version (and has been like this since I've been using it - it's not limited to this new version) is the strange behaviour it exhibits around tabs - specifically opening new links in tabs. In the preferences, under the General tab, there is a choice for 'opening links from applications':

• in a new window
• in a new tab in the current window

I've selected 'in a new tab in the current window', just as I do for the similar preference in Firefox, yet when I click on links in Google Reader, it opens a new frickin' window! WTF?! In Firefox the behaviour is as expected - it opens the link in a new tab in the current window! Anybody know if there is a way to fix this in Safari?

I read a post over on CrunchGear quite a while back about SIM cards and how they now include NFC (Near Field Communication) and how that would allow you to start paying for things with your cellphone. The problem with this, and any technologies like it, is of course that we need to get mass adoption of the technology for it to really work. I for one would love to see this happen. Why should I have to carry around multiple credit / debits cards when I'm already carrying around my cell phone which has the capability to store and transmit the required data from ALL of these cards combined? I'm not completely sure on how things would be implemented, but I assume you'd add some security to the process in the way of requiring a PIN or perhaps even a biometric (fingerprint) reader - afterall, with all these touch screen products like the iPhone coming out, that shouldn't be too hard to implement right?

Update: Dave pointed out to me that touch screen and scanner (for fingerprint reading) are two different things. Fair enough Dave. He also suggested that it would be a good idea for the fingerprint reader to be at the store instead of on the device - great idea. Alternatively - most phones have a camera on them now don't they? Couldn't that be used somehow? :)

Wow - it seems everyone is getting themselves a blog these days. Just in the past week or so I've added 3 new blogs to my "Friends" block. Alyssa recently got back on the blog wagon after having let her last attempt at a blog wither and die. Lets hope this one lasts a little longer. Since she's got a new baby now, I'm sure she'll have lots of stories to share, but perhaps not the time to share them. :(

The Lawsons also recently started up a new blog. Already they've put a few posts up and it looks like Grant will be providing some comedic relief in his posts. Check out his story about Maya's tea party.

And last but not least - I received an email today from Julie saying that her and Trevor have started up a blog. She is wise to start their blog by saying that she makes no promises on the number of posts and the time in between each of them. I get hassled a bit for my lack of posting but that's just the way things go. We can't all be like Steve and write a post a day for Pete's sake!

I've also subscribed (in Google Reader - my aggregator of choice) to a bunch of other blogs which I find interesting, not necessarily friends of mine, but acquaintances like Duane and Lloyd. Lloyd is expecting his first baby soon so I always enjoy reading about other people's experiences in that part of their life.

Anyways, keep up the good work folks - I enjoy reading everyone's stories and keeping up to date however I can.

I don't really have a lot of details, but I do know that two sets of my friends have each welcomed an addition to their families today. Alyssa and Greg Herage welcomed their first baby - a little girl named Avery Beryl at around 0700 this morning; and Trevor and Julie Mason welcomed their second child, a boy, at around 0840. I've heard that everyone is doing well, but no word on a name for the Mason baby yet. As such, I've decided to call him Jean-Guy. :)

Congrats to all four of you guys - fantastic news and I can't wait to meet the little ones.

Update: Here are some photos of the little ones:

Nicholas Walter Mason	Avery Beryl Herage