General

Way back at the beginning of October, my good friends Dave and Meghan got married. I wrote a short post congratulating them and mentioning that I had the privilege of co-emceeing the event. I also mentioned that I would write a follow-up post about the experience, and this is that post.

Liam is on a roll these days. This time he wanted to send out some happy birthday wishes to Dana so I helped him create this little video. Hope you like it Dana. Oh and Happy Birthday! :)

For a larger version of this video - you can check the Flickr page directly.

On a side note, I think I may have hit the wall with respect to editing videos using iMovie. I found out while making this video that iMovie '08 doesn't allow you to do slow motion (or fast motion for that matter) so I had to drop back to iMovie '06 to create the slow motion part of the video, then export it and finally import it into iMovie '08 for use with the video. That's a lot of extra work. I'm wondering what else is out there for video editing. Would Final Cut Pro be overkill? Probably. I'll have to do a little digging and see what I can find. If anyone out there reading this has any suggestions for video editing software for mac, let me know. Thanks.

I would be remiss if I didn't send out some congratulations to my good friends Dave and Meghan who tied the knot this past weekend. It was a nice short ceremony and of course Meghan looked absolutely beautiful! Dave was looking pretty snazzy too, and I really liked how the bridesmaids with their black dresses and red shalls matched the groomsmen in their black suits with red ties. Well done on that Meg!

The reception was held at the Ottawa New Edinburgh Club Boathouse, which was a very cool location. Myself and Rob Sample had the honour of being MCs for the event and we had a lot of fun with it. I'm planning to write a separate post about the experience of being MC, but we'll see if that happens or not.

So congratulations guys on your wedding - I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as your guests did. :)

Liam turned two at the end of September, on the same day that my buddy Dave turned 32 actually - it was a Friday. Earlier that week, Amy had asked me if I could work from home that day, or at the very least not go into work until a bit later as she had to pick up a friend at the airport and didn't want to take the kids with her. I certainly didn't have a problem with that so I hung out at home while Amy headed off to the airport early on Friday morning. She showed up back at home around 0830 - but she wasn't alone! Turns out she had my dad with her! He had come up for the weekend to celebrate Liam's birthday and both Liam and I were very surprised, and very happy to see him! Thanks for coming dad!

The party was a success, with Amy making a wonderful bulldozer cake to go along with her construction theme. The only snag in the decorations was one of the signs that had 'required' spelled incorrectly (Amy was distracted during its creation), but since the kids can't really spell at this age, we weren't too concerned. Funny thing is, either the adults at the party can't spell either or else they all talk with a Boston accent and "Requied" looked like the correct spelling. ;) Since we've been busy with the new baby, we had hoped to keep the party small, but in the end there were 12 kids and probably just as many adults in attendance. Sadly the weather didn't cooperate which meant the party took place inside instead of in the back yard. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. Liam certainly got a lot gifts, including many new toys that make all sorts of annoying noises. Thanks guys! :)

The other thing that normally coincides with Liam's birthday (or the birthday weekend anyways) is the National Police Memorial. Amy hasn't missed going each year since she became a police officer - either marching or else going to watch. This year was no different. We met up with Shelley, who had Anthony and Isabella with her, on Parliament Hill. I tried to keeps the boys busy while Amy and Shelley watched the memorial. At one point during the ceremony, they fired off a cannon and it startled us since we weren't expecting it. Liam commented that it had scared him, but not to the point of tears or anything. I decided that we should wander over to where the cannon was so that the boys could get a look at what made the 'big bang' and then maybe it wouldn't be as scary. When we got to within about 20 feet of the cannon, I was told that they would be firing it again and that we couldn't get any closer. I should have known better, but for some reason I thought it would be a great idea to hang around and watch the cannon being fired - that way the kids could see it in action. Bad idea. The second the thing went off, Liam and Anthony both jumped about 5 feet in the air, Liam grabbed onto me and wouldn't let go and was crying for his mommy. I scooped them both up and started walking back to where Amy and Shelley were. Anthony was fine, trying to console Liam by telling him that it was ok and patting him on the arm. Liam eventually calmed down after I told him repeatedly that the 'big bang' was gone and wouldn't be coming back. He still remembers it though, and every once in a while tells me, "big bang gone."

I got a Polar RS200sd heart rate monitor for my birthday back in 2007. Love the watch / HRM and have used it a lot. I liked the look and feel of it enough that I wore it as my primary watch, and not just when I was training. It has never let me down, but just a short while ago, when I went to put it on one morning, the strap broke. It didn't break off completely and the watch was still wearable, but the broken strap meant that it would have to be worn too loose, and it would only be a matter of time before the strap broke completely off, leaving the watch unwearable. Have a look at the picture below and you'll see what I mean.

At the time I had had the watch for about a year and a half or so and I figured that the warranty must be up - believing that most items usually have only a one year warranty. Since the strap on this unit was completely integrated with the watch, it wouldn't be an easy task to replace the strap myself - I would definitely have to send it back to Polar. I sent an email off to Polar support asking what my options were, and hoping that maybe they'd view this as a defective strap (or potentially bad design) and would offer to replace it for me even if the warranty was up. I was extremely happy to get a response back from Polar very quickly stating that the unit actually had a 2 year warranty and that they would indeed replace the strap free of charge - all I had to do was ship it to them in Montreal.

I figured I'd try pushing my luck a bit and informed the girl that had responded to me that the battery in the watch was low and asked if maybe they could replace that too. She was quick to respond and told me that I could purchase a new battery from them for $25, which would include the return shipping costs. I was a little confused with that answer (especially the bit about the return shipping costs since presumably they were going to be shipping the watch back to me after the strap was replaced) and responded back to her telling her not to worry about it - that I figured I could replace the battery myself for cheaper than that. She didn't like that idea, and in fact told me not to do it since it would void my warranty. I finally relented and decided that $25 for a new battery wasn't that bad (considering I'd pay close to that myself for the battery alone), especially since the watch would again be 'factory sealed', and included a note in the shipment asking that they call me so I could pay them over the phone when they received the watch.

Well as you can see from the image above, they ended up replacing the battery for free! Have a look at that invoice: they replaced the strap, replaced the face plate (it had a few scratches on it, and yes, maybe the strap and faceplate were all one unit but still...), replaced the battery and did a couple of tests (functionality, water resistance) all for free! I was without the watch for maybe a week and a half total. I sent the watch to them via regular mail, but they sent it back to me via Purolator.

When it comes to HRMs, you can't beat Polar, and I've always been happy with the products I've bought from them. This excellent service I just received significantly reinforces the fact that I will only be buying Polar HRMs in the future and will certainly recommend them to anyone. Thank you Polar Canada!

I was on my way home the other day and my cell phone rang. I took a look at the display and it said that it was home calling. Naturally I assumed it was Amy calling, wondering when I'd be home, but much to my surprise (and delight) the first thing I heard after I said hello was Liam saying "Hi Daddy!". Amy had put the call on handsfree and I was able to hear Liam clear as a bell. It wasn't the longest conversation in the world...in fact I'm not sure if he said much beyond the hello, but it was definitely a great experience for me - my first call from my son. He's taken quite a bit more interest in the telephone lately so I anticipate I'll be getting more and more calls as time goes on. :)

I've been thinking a lot lately about sleep. I can't complain at all about a lack of sleep due to the new baby - Amy has been absolutely amazing in taking care of Grace pretty much exclusively, leaving me to 'sleep through the night'. Have I been sleeping through the night? Sadly no - not for a long time.

I've never, ever, had a problem falling asleep. It generally only takes me a few minutes to fall asleep after laying down. Add alcohol into the mix and that drops from a few minutes to a few seconds. :) However, just because I fall asleep easily doesn't mean that I necessarily stay asleep or that I will wake up feeling rested. I can't remember the last time I actually slept through the night. I typically get up at least once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and generally speaking, when I get up in the morning, I normally feel quite beat instead of rested.

Things were actually worse just before Grace was born - I was getting up in the morning feeling absolutely exhausted for some reason. I attributed this mostly to the fact that my activity level had dropped off significantly (pretty much completely actually) - I wasn't running or cycling at all and was generally being quite lazy. I started to get back on track shortly after Grace was born, getting out for runs with Ellie, but then I got hit with seasonal allergies and that has essentially taken me out of commission. I went to the doctor (for an unrelated reason) and she pretty much confirmed what I was thinking - that I needed to get off my ass and start exercising regularily again.

And while I'm talking about sleeping, I have to mention my son Liam, who has always been a really good sleeper. Liam started sleeping through the night (from about 2130 until 0500 I think) when he was about 6 weeks old. As he got older, he would sleep for longer periods until he got to where he is now - sleeping 11 to 12 hours a night. I compare this to friends of Amy's who have kids that are the same age as Liam who still don't sleep through the night. Liam is a very active young boy - pretty much on the go the whole time he is awake - and I hope he stays that way for the rest of his life. Thinking along the same lines as above, I'm sure his activity level contributes to how well he sleeps. I can't explain why he started sleeping so well when he was just a baby though, since he wasn't very active at the time. I guess it's just one contributing factor - I'm sure there are many.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm very grateful that Liam sleeps the way he does...I don't think I could handle it any other way. Here's hoping that Grace will pick up on Liam's good habits. :)

This saga started back in October of 2007 when I first submitted a 'change request' for an incorrectly named road in the New River Beach area of NB. I submitted the change directly to NAVTEQ and eventually got a response back from them in May of 2008 saying that they had made the change. I wondered how long it would take before I saw the change on Google Maps. Well just the other day I was playing around with my iPhone and the Google Maps App on it and decided I'd go and have a look. Turns out that Google has indeed picked up the name change, as you can see from the photo accompanying this post. The weird thing is that when I visit google maps from a compter, it still shows the old name - see here. So, it looks like the maps being used by the Google Maps application on the iPhone are more up to date than those available to everyone else. What's up with that?

UPDATE: I was really curious about this, so I did a bit more digging. It seems that the maps that are available through Google's API for maps are also the more up to date maps. I checked out the maps at gmap-pedometer.com and they too have the updated road name. Just to be sure, I checked out the maps on activesteve.com as well and sure enough - updated road name there too. Interesting that they don't use the most up-to-date maps for themselves... BTW - the 'most up-to-date' does't mean they are correct, I've seen at least a couple of errors in the maps so far.

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.

A while back (quite a while ago actually) I made the switch from Bell Mobility to Rogers as my cell phone service provider. The switch was driven, in large part, by the fact that Rogers had all the 'cool' phones. At the time I wanted a RAZR and also at the time, Bell didn't have a CDMA version of the RAZR. Anyways, I made the switch.