Again it would seem that I am lousy at updating this blog. Things have been pretty busy, mostly with work. The change in jobs has been good and I have thrown myself into it. My buddy James sent the picture above. It would seem that Holden is sneaking out at night and working as a pet model. Then, my sister passed along this picture which confirms the theory:



I spent last week in Ottawa and got a chance to see some people during the whirlwind trip. On one particular evening, a group of guys who I used to play basketball with had dinner and few drinks. Some of those dudes I had not seen in years and several of them had not seen one another. Very good time. As I drove back to Toronto, I wanted to kick myself for not taking a single picture the whole time I was in Ottawa.

I've mentioned a few times that we do skeptical parodies of popular songs most weeks for the Ottawa Skeptics' podcast "The Reality Check." In order to include the music into the upcoming iPhone application for the show, I needed to put together the music and short descriptions of each song in a format that could feed the application. I finally got to that a couple of weeks ago and you can take a peak here.


Near the house is an area know as "the junction." The area has some great restaurants and coffee shops. Recently we went for a walk with Holden and passed the store above. Now, I hate to judge and taste is a personal thing but... would you buy a sign from a sign maker who has THAT sign for themselves? I feel bad that they seem to have gone out of business but I have to wonder if that might have had something to do with it. Then, a few short blocks later this place:


I think that is it for now. I had a vasectomy a few weeks ago. It was a very unpleasant and, in retrospect, interesting experience. I haven't decided whether I want to blog about the process and recovery yet. Maybe next time.

click to enlarge:



I haven't been very good about updating this but it has been on my mind. Lots of things to tell:

Holden:

The dog has been doing great. Now that I am working from home, he is with me all day and he basically sleeps all day. Occasionally we go for a walk at lunch but the weather in Toronto has been wall to wall rain and so... not as often as either of us would like.



Our friends Isabelle and James gave Holden a plastic dinosaur. Seemed like a silly toy for a dog but, I have never seen the dog spend more time with a toy. We named the toy Squeaky Steve and, though it doesn't squeak anymore... he plays with it constantly. Isabelle and James have since given him Squeaky Luc but the constant noise has us taking it away from him an awful lot.



Car:

My old reliable VW Golf has been traded in. "Rolf" Golf got me to and from Toronto countless times but since Cristina has a Rabbit (Jessica) we figured we needed something a little bit bigger as a second car.

Meet Juan Tiguan:




Gadgets:

I gave my wife an iPad 2 for her birthday. In keeping with the recent theme of smashing expensive electronics, she dropped it.





The new iPads are really nice and quick but the new magnetic cases are to be avoided. Something in us has the tendency to grab it by the case and... that is a sure fire way to smash it. Kudos to Apple for replacing it, free. Needless to say, we are on the hunt for a new case for it.

Lastly, we went and saw Biffy Clyro on Saturday night. I have seen a lot of bands play live. This was something else... that band is so tight, so together. Really amazing to watch.



I think that is it for now. Life is pretty normal. Quitting smoking sucks but I am fairly committed. More on that as I progress or fail.

Things have been a bit busy. Lots to update, lots of pictures.

Gadgets

You might have guessed from above that I smashed my iPhone. I don't really want to talk about it.

Other than that, a couple of new gadgets have entered my life. I am a member of the work related blackberry club again. I forgot how compelling it is to check the damned thing every few minutes when I am away from a computer. Speaking of computers, I have a windows laptop in the house again. The macs and the windows machine get along just fine.

Ottawa

I spent just over a week in Ottawa in a whirlwind trip. Most of it was getting up to speed on my new job. I am working with lots of familiar faces around subjects that I know well. It feels good.

While in Ottawa I got several visits in with family and friends. First off, I finally met my great niece, Autumn (aka "Squishy"). I've never been a baby person but, man, she will steal your heart.





I also went to a wedding reception. My dear friend, Jeff got married. Jeff and I have know each other since junior high school and were college roommates. It was really nice to meet his new Serena.




Work

So, I am working from home. I've never done that before and it comes with certain challenges. It has only been a week but it can be isolating. It is also difficult to remember to do the normal things you do in a day like shower and eat. Attending meeting by phone will take some getting used to as well. All and all I think it will just be a matter of getting into a routine but, like all new things for me, I feel the need to adapt and excel immediately.

One thing is for certain, I have the coolest office of any of my colleagues. I also get to hang out with Holden all day.





Other than that, the basketball season is now done. Again - the story behind that is: I signed up to coach James' team as something he and I did together. He broke his collar bone in the first three minutes of the first game and I was signed on for the rest of the season. That said, the team was a great bunch of young men and the other coach, Scott, was awesome. We finished fourth but not before I coached the semi-final game solo. This game would have seen us going for top spot. It was a heck of a game that we lost by 2 points in overtime.

I think that is it for now. I am getting into a groove and will try to get back to regular updates.

Yesterday was Holden’s third birthday. Above is how he celebrated.

Things are good. I am gearing up for some time in Ottawa. I’ve accepted a position – working out of Ottawa but based in Toronto. A bit of an odd situation but it solves a lot of problems. I’ve enjoyed my time working here but I was made an offer I simply could not refuse. So, this week will be my last at the corner of Young and Bloor. I will miss the lively lunch time walks. My life will be a bit less interesting without them, trading in for lunch time walks with Holden in the neighbourhood.

It will be great to see people in Ottawa and to finally meet my great-niece!

This last year has been a little crazy. I left my job, sold all my possessions and moved out of my house. I moved to a new city, a new job and a new family life. It has been a wild time and, I think, I have started to get into a pretty good groove finally. In a couple of weeks I will be living in Toronto for one year. What better way to celebrate than to…well…. do it all again?

Yeah. Really. I have decided to change jobs again. I have resigned and will take on something new working from home in a couple of weeks. It is a huge leap of faith and, frankly, I am scared but for a bunch of reasons I think it is the right thing to do. It will also land me back in Ottawa for visits a bit more often. I will miss working in the thick of the city. I will miss the people here who I have come to like and admire. I will not get to see things through on a neat project.

People told me I would not miss the Ottawa snow once I moved to Toronto but the picture above proves that Toronto gets its share. The reaction of the city is very different though: closed schools, police warning to stay home, etc.



I may even miss taking the subway every day a little bit. I follow 17 postcasts each week and the subway, as well as the walk to and from, is where a lot of that happens. All in all that is about 90 minutes every day that I dedicate to listening. Add my lunch and I am putting in two hours a day. I will now have to make that time. It seems trivial but the forced downtime of commuting is something I have always put to - what I would consider - good use. Now it will be time I need to find.

The picture above may seem uninteresting but, let us zoom in:



That is two guys in full body suits ridding the TTC. Who knows why.

Lastly, I don't go to rock clubs much any more. I spent so much time playing them that I just don't want to go any more. That said, my buddy Graeme Cornies' band, Us and Them, had their album release last weekend and I wanted to be there. It is a great album. Seek it out.



As I walked around the El Macambo, a club I have played many times, I was struck with some Ben Folds lyrics about the death of Elliott Smith:

Under some dirty words on a dirty wall
Eating takeout by myself
I play the shows
Got back in the van and put the walkman on
And you were playing

In some other dive a thousand miles away
I played a thousand times before
And like pathetic stars, the truck stops and the rock club walls
I always knew
You saw them too
But you never will again

Alright, I’ve been pretty tough on Torontonians and, for the most part, I stand by what I’ve said. I’ve met some wonderful people here but commuting is like diving into a sea of pushy, selfish and self-important people. I just never had this same feeling in Ottawa. Granted, here I take public transportation and in Ottawa I drove but, I had taken the bus more than once and I never remember people stepping on me, over me or in front of me.

Toronto got a fair amount of snow last week. This city is not home to Bozo LePlow, who I expect still terrorizes the streets of Orleans, however a distant family member does live here. He is a cousin of Bozo but he is a much different person. Picture this if you can:

I am out struggling to chop down the huge pile of ice at the end of my driveway left by a person who I suspect is a much closer relative to Bozo. A humongous plow comes by and… the guy beeps his horn at me. I spent a few seconds looking at him in confusion as he waved as if to say: get out of the way. Ok, I thought, he can’t see and doesn’t want to run me over. I can appreciate that. Instead what happened next is quite incredible. He plowed the end of my laneway. I’ll say it again for effect. He moved the giant pile of ice at the end of my laneway. I was dumbfounded and so what I did next was ridiculous. I shot him a salute.

It has been a while since I posted. I mentioned being sick and it lasted a long time. I had a flu that I just could not beat. Eventually I was tested for whooping cough but, having heard nothing, I expect it was just a really bad flu. I seem to be on the other side of it now, feeling much better. I owe some pictures of my bathroom and I will get on it!

Holden is a hipster as you can see above. Actually, this is sort of like a "treat on the nose" type trick. He has to sit still until I tell him to move but, man, it makes for a funny picture.

I have been really, really sick. It started earlier last week and it is not simply a cold. I cannot remember being this sick for a long time now and I am starting to fear that I have some sort of lung infection. It's not the easiest thing to get in to see a doctor these days either. It so happens that I already have an appointment for a checkup next week but, hopefully, I will be feeling better by then. Of course, this brings up one of the bigger issues with my recent career change. With the feds I was carrying hundreds of sick days in the bank. Here I have nothing. So, to be really sick this early in the game is not a good thing. I have been going into work and I hope to heck I am not contagious.

The bathroom and kitchen got finished on the day of Xmas eve and then Shteena and I spent the whole afternoon trying to clean to some semblance of normal in the house. We are still getting sorted in many ways but by the end of this weekend we should be back in order. There are things about the reno that I love and others that I wish had been done differently but, overall, both kitchen and bathroom look amazing. I'll be sure to get some pictures up soon.

The holidays were pretty quite given that I was really sick. We exchanged gifts and, among other things, I got this from my wife:



A picture doesn't really do it justice. It is a wire frame sculpture by a local artist. We had seen his work on the home and garden channel and it was amazing. The reason a picture doesn't do it justice, though, is that the truly amazing part of his sculpture is the shadows they cast. I will try and get some pictures of that if I can but, it is quite unbelievable.

I wish you all a very happy new year.

Lots of pictures to share this week. We start with the bathroom still being a disaster:



Most of the drywall is done, the bathtub is in and they tiled the shower area. The pot lights and new fan are in as well. The entire job (bathroom and kitchen) were supposed to be finished today. Still left to do are:

Finish tiling the shower
Tile the bathtub
New sub floor bathroom
Tile the floor
Install shower, toilet, sink
Prime and paint everything

In the meantime our living room continues to house all the things that still need installing as well as the tiles for both rooms.



To that end, the plan was to finish the bathroom and then move on to the kitchen and mudroom so that we only had one room destroyed at a time. Given the delays we have given them the go ahead to add people to the team and start on the kitchen at the same. Yesterday they installed the new sub floor in the kitchen which means that our dining room is now home to two fridges, a stove and dishwasher, various door and everything else from the kitchen.



It has become incredibly disruptive. They will also be working through the weekend which means we have to vacate the house. We are having considerably less fun suddenly.



It isn’t just disruptive to us but war zones have incredible power to create bonds. Here we see mortal enemies drawn together in a strange friendship, and building a bond in the chaos.



Holden goes to Boysie’s place everyday but sometimes needs to be locked in the basement for short periods while workers are there. There is, however, a cat door to the basement so he can keep an eye on things.



Ok, moving on (pun intended) to something else…. I went with Cristina to see the album release of Emily Mover. Emily is a local singer song writer that my wife is doing some work with. I described her as “having a voice made for an Apple commercial.” It so happens that her father is Bob Mover – quite a famous jazz sax player. He has played with Charles Mingus and Chet Baker and flew in from New York to play with his daughter. So it came to be that in a small restaurant type bar that I got to watch a jazz legend play.



In other news, we watched “Inception.” I had received a few notes from people about Tom Hardy’s character being my doppelganger and, for the first time in my life, I was quite freaked out by someone actually looking quite a bit like me, albeit, when I was a little younger. Still - Here is a picture of me from last year and a picture of Tom Hardy.



Great weekend all.

Well, things are interesting around the house. Above is our bathroom. Work started on Monday and, as of yesterday, the bathroom still looked much like the picture above with the exception of a non functional bathtub having been installed but not yet tiled. We have at least a good week left to go before we will have the bathroom back. Meantime, we shipped James off to his father’s place for two week and have been washing in sinks and using a toilet in the basement. It is a pain to go to the basement to take a pee at three in morning but I am rather pleased to say that both of us have pretty much kept our cool so far. I will get some progress shots up as soon as, well, I see some progress.

In addition to work in the bathroom, we are finishing off the kitchen. You will recall my beautiful cabinet work here:



We hired a neat company called Eco Refinishers who came in with a bunch of gear and a crazy UV system. They basically resurface the existing counter. It looks amazing.



Starting Monday, we will have the ceiling and floor ripped out and redone with pot lighting and tile. Crazy times at the house!


Other than that, things are ok. The Raptors are near the top of the standings with a record of 5 and 2. I will coach my second solo game tomorrow. I am continuing to acclimatise to Toronto. We had a pretty cold snap this week, easily on par with this time of year in Ottawa and there is warning of a snow storm this weekend. So far, not the mild weather Torontonians would have you believe is the norm. That said, I expect Ottawa will surpass anything we have here in terms of temperature and snow before long. I’ll be staying here for the holidays however will make a trek Ottawa in mid February for Jeff’s wedding reception.

Good weekend, y’all!

It has been a while since I posted. I have been really busy at work and at home. I am starting to feel like I am missing stuff. My buddy Doug from Victoria was in Ottawa for the better part of a week and I couldn’t get down to see him. Then I got a call from one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jeff, who asked if I would stand for him at his wedding in Mexico. I just can’t take a week away. Jeff and I have known each other since junior high school were college roommates and have shared a lot of good times. Our lives went different ways and we just don’t see each other as much as we used to. I am thrilled for Jeff that he has met someone and I could hear in his voice just how happy he is. I just wish I could be there.

I was thinking about Holden. When we adopted him from the SPCA, his name was Murray and I worried a bit that changing his name would be confusing. Now, of course, I realized that much like my former cat “Spooge,” Holden is a dog with many names. He is constantly being called anything but him actual name around the house. Here are a few of my favorites:

- Mr. Poopy Pants
- Barky McBarkerson
- Mr. Bojangles (when he walks around at night like he has tap shoes on)
- Pacey McPacerson (when he has to go to the bathroom)
- Ka Ka Face McStinkerson
- Pooper of the Soft Serve (when he has digestion problems)
- Captain Stinko
- The Cheat
- Scratchy McScratcherson

Of course, I still call him Murray all the time as well.

The basketball team is 4 and 1, having only lost that one game by a single point. The boys are playing well and last Saturday was the first time I coached a game solo. We won 51-25. Then on Sunday we went and saw the Raptors/Celtics game. It was a blast and the game was a nail biter with one point between the teams with 2 seconds left. Fun stuff. James has his fracture clinic appointment this week and, with any luck, should be back in the line up this weekend.

We are also getting ready to have our washroom completely gutted. We have a second toilet but this is the only bathroom in the house. Cristina's office is close by and there is a shower. James will stay with his dad for the majority of the time but I expect Cristina and I are in for a rough couple of weeks.