One week of rest and relaxation! That's the plan, anyway. I've got a long list of things to do and I've promised myself to get them all done. It's supposed to be sunny all week and then golf on Saturday! Nothing like R & R.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Hockey is Back!
Scott Niedermayer had a fight so you know this World Cup of Hockey means something. It's great to see skating take precedent over grabbing, although you can still see plenty of it. It's the best sport in the world!
Monday, August 30, 2004
World Cup of Hockey 2004
Game 1 has just finished and Finland has whipped the Czechs 4-0. We should enjoy this hockey now as we might not see any for a while. Does anybody really care about this tournament or has it's importance diminished over the years?
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Funny post from another Blog
This made me laugh. From Idiodyssey.blogspot.com.
My Body is a Temple:
Much like the ones you find deep in the jungle - crumbling and overgrown with parasitic vines.
Too funny
My Body is a Temple:
Much like the ones you find deep in the jungle - crumbling and overgrown with parasitic vines.
Too funny
Your Toronto Blue Jays
Hooking, hooking, foul.
Is anyone watching the Jays this year? I take a peak once in a while but only by accident. I stay to see the score but barely last an inning. Is it because they stink or has the Olympics taken away their audience? We need George Bell and Lloyd Moseby back!
Is anyone watching the Jays this year? I take a peak once in a while but only by accident. I stay to see the score but barely last an inning. Is it because they stink or has the Olympics taken away their audience? We need George Bell and Lloyd Moseby back!
Should have stayed in bed
It's only 9:05 in the morning and it's already shaping up to be a bad day. First thing that happens is the toilet stops working. I fix the chain that has come off the flush handle (those are my technical terms) and luckily the toilet empties its contents on the next flush. That's a load off my mind (pardon the pun)!
Now the drive to work gets a little dicey. I'm the first vehicle stopped on a red and watch the traffic exiting the highway off-ramp onto the street I'm on. A truck with a load of wood, piled very high on its extended flat-bed, is coming off the ramp a bit too quickly and it's flat-bed starts to teeter to the right. I'm looking at it thinking this dude is in trouble. He finishes making the left and the load spills onto the shoulder but the flat-bed bounces and jack-knifes so that it has blocked both lanes. The driver comes out, assesses the situation, and goes back into the cab of the truck, as cool as a cucumber. Meanwhile, cars are squeaking past this disaster on the right shoulder. I finally get through, 10 minutes later and get to work.
Feeling safe in my office, I start to check my email using Outlook. I get into the Calendar section and, for reasons beyond my control, start to adjust the Task settings. I'm not sure what I did but the tasks are now missing check boxes that were once there and there are columns within columns...it's a mess. After 15 minutes of trying to fix this blasted page, I leave my office in disgust and get some water at the office kitchen. I return to the scene of the crime and try one more thing. It works! Again, not sure what I did but I stopped making adjustments after that.
What does the rest of the day have in store for me?
Now the drive to work gets a little dicey. I'm the first vehicle stopped on a red and watch the traffic exiting the highway off-ramp onto the street I'm on. A truck with a load of wood, piled very high on its extended flat-bed, is coming off the ramp a bit too quickly and it's flat-bed starts to teeter to the right. I'm looking at it thinking this dude is in trouble. He finishes making the left and the load spills onto the shoulder but the flat-bed bounces and jack-knifes so that it has blocked both lanes. The driver comes out, assesses the situation, and goes back into the cab of the truck, as cool as a cucumber. Meanwhile, cars are squeaking past this disaster on the right shoulder. I finally get through, 10 minutes later and get to work.
Feeling safe in my office, I start to check my email using Outlook. I get into the Calendar section and, for reasons beyond my control, start to adjust the Task settings. I'm not sure what I did but the tasks are now missing check boxes that were once there and there are columns within columns...it's a mess. After 15 minutes of trying to fix this blasted page, I leave my office in disgust and get some water at the office kitchen. I return to the scene of the crime and try one more thing. It works! Again, not sure what I did but I stopped making adjustments after that.
What does the rest of the day have in store for me?
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Frodo lost his ring...happy ending!
Yes indeed, I lost my wedding ring while at my friends' cottage a few weeks ago and need to tell the world my story.
My wife was at home that weekend, busy with work, while this mouse played. After a few wobbly pops, a few of us decided to go swimming at around midnight. I didn't stray far from the dock as I can swim as well as a boulder. As I swam I had to fix my aqua socks, those rubber-soled sock/shoes that protect your feet from the bottom of the lake, as they were a little big for me and the foot action made them slide off slightly. Well, we stood on top of a small surf board as tried to surf on the calm lake. Did I mention the wobbly pops? We had enough fun and it was getting cold so we came in and dried off by the fire.
I grabbed a beer and as habit, attempted to click my wedding ring on the beer bottle. Being a drummer, I'm always tapping with my fingers. This time there was no sound on the bottle. I slowly looked at my hand and saw no ring. Holy crap! I could feel the heart attack a comin'. I quietly announce to everyone around the fire that I lost my ring. The world stopped for a second and everyone thought I was joking until they saw the look on my face. FYI: I have lost 20 pounds this summer so the ring is a bit loose. Everyone got up and tried to find this gold band in the middle of the night using one flashlight. I had no idea where it had come off so we searched the pea-gravel pathway from the house to the dock. Can you say needle in a haystack? We decided to give up the search for the night and try again tomorrow. Their condolences poured over me and I was dejected. I told my friend Bonnie, who seemed just as heart-broken as I was, that I could buy another one just like it but it just wouldn't be the same. People started to go to bed but I was in no mood for sleep, so, I stayed up all night with my buddy Roon and he tried to take my mind off it with some more beers.
The hours passed and the sun eventually came up. I tried another search for it around the cottage, inside the cottage, around the dock and I looked into the lake from the dock but to no avail. I had resigned myself to the fact that the ring was lost.
Bonnie awoke and took her 2 kids down for a morning swim while I had my breakfast. Everyone was awake at this point and out on the deck. I finished my breakfast and joined the group on the deck when all of a sudden, Bonnie yells out, "Paul, what do I get if I find your ring?" I yell back, "The world is your oyster. Anything you want!" She then says that she may have found it. I sprint down from the deck to the dock and see her wearing goggles and diving to the bottom of the lake. It's only about 4 feet where she was but she was in the vicinity of where I spent most of the time in the water that night. She comes up for a breath and says that she thinks she sees it. My heart pounds with anticipation as she dives down again. A few seconds later (it seemed like hours though) her hand shoots out of the water holding my ring. I shit myself! I yell to the gang on the deck that Bonnie found the ring and she gets out of the water to hugs galore. She tells me that she had to find it because she hated the look on my face last night. I slap the ring on my finger and thank her immensely for another 10 minutes. I owe Bonnie one...if not three! I realize that as I was adjusting my aqua socks, the ring must have been knocked off my finger. Damn aqua socks!
Melanie, my wife, was quite amused by this when I told her all about my adventure. Thank God for the happy ending. Quick check...yes, it's still on my finger.
My wife was at home that weekend, busy with work, while this mouse played. After a few wobbly pops, a few of us decided to go swimming at around midnight. I didn't stray far from the dock as I can swim as well as a boulder. As I swam I had to fix my aqua socks, those rubber-soled sock/shoes that protect your feet from the bottom of the lake, as they were a little big for me and the foot action made them slide off slightly. Well, we stood on top of a small surf board as tried to surf on the calm lake. Did I mention the wobbly pops? We had enough fun and it was getting cold so we came in and dried off by the fire.
I grabbed a beer and as habit, attempted to click my wedding ring on the beer bottle. Being a drummer, I'm always tapping with my fingers. This time there was no sound on the bottle. I slowly looked at my hand and saw no ring. Holy crap! I could feel the heart attack a comin'. I quietly announce to everyone around the fire that I lost my ring. The world stopped for a second and everyone thought I was joking until they saw the look on my face. FYI: I have lost 20 pounds this summer so the ring is a bit loose. Everyone got up and tried to find this gold band in the middle of the night using one flashlight. I had no idea where it had come off so we searched the pea-gravel pathway from the house to the dock. Can you say needle in a haystack? We decided to give up the search for the night and try again tomorrow. Their condolences poured over me and I was dejected. I told my friend Bonnie, who seemed just as heart-broken as I was, that I could buy another one just like it but it just wouldn't be the same. People started to go to bed but I was in no mood for sleep, so, I stayed up all night with my buddy Roon and he tried to take my mind off it with some more beers.
The hours passed and the sun eventually came up. I tried another search for it around the cottage, inside the cottage, around the dock and I looked into the lake from the dock but to no avail. I had resigned myself to the fact that the ring was lost.
Bonnie awoke and took her 2 kids down for a morning swim while I had my breakfast. Everyone was awake at this point and out on the deck. I finished my breakfast and joined the group on the deck when all of a sudden, Bonnie yells out, "Paul, what do I get if I find your ring?" I yell back, "The world is your oyster. Anything you want!" She then says that she may have found it. I sprint down from the deck to the dock and see her wearing goggles and diving to the bottom of the lake. It's only about 4 feet where she was but she was in the vicinity of where I spent most of the time in the water that night. She comes up for a breath and says that she thinks she sees it. My heart pounds with anticipation as she dives down again. A few seconds later (it seemed like hours though) her hand shoots out of the water holding my ring. I shit myself! I yell to the gang on the deck that Bonnie found the ring and she gets out of the water to hugs galore. She tells me that she had to find it because she hated the look on my face last night. I slap the ring on my finger and thank her immensely for another 10 minutes. I owe Bonnie one...if not three! I realize that as I was adjusting my aqua socks, the ring must have been knocked off my finger. Damn aqua socks!
Melanie, my wife, was quite amused by this when I told her all about my adventure. Thank God for the happy ending. Quick check...yes, it's still on my finger.
The thigh bone connected to the pain bone
Ouch! I'm in serious ache mode. Last Saturday I helped my dad fix the interlock brick to my grandparents entrance way at their home. We removed all the brick, laid down some limestone, added railway ties as a border, leveled everything nice, and put the interlock back on. Starting the job at 9 am, I was hoping to have it done by 3 pm. Wrong! Leveling the limestone so the bricks lay with a bit of slope for drainage is not as easy as I remembered it to be. We finished at around 8 pm. Yes, I was hunched over or on my knees for close to 12 hours (insert punchline here). It was all worth it though. My grandfather has been asking me to do it for most of the year and we did a pretty good job. My grandmother was happy with it and that's all that matters.
And now the pain has found a home throughout every inch of my legs. There's some pain in my hands and forearms from carrying and placing the bricks, but it has settled mostly in the inner thighs. I rarely get sore here and realize how important these muscles are when walking...it looks like I've got a cactus in my gitch! To make matters worse, my wife and I have joined a "Learn to Run" program with the Running Room. We're supposed to get in two training runs before our Thursday group runs. I'm happy to say that I did the training run last night and we plan to do another tonight. Yes, it does hurt but the pain is telling me I'm alive and have actually used my body...in a good way.
Hope to get a pic of the finished work and post it here. Legs cramping...gotta go!
And now the pain has found a home throughout every inch of my legs. There's some pain in my hands and forearms from carrying and placing the bricks, but it has settled mostly in the inner thighs. I rarely get sore here and realize how important these muscles are when walking...it looks like I've got a cactus in my gitch! To make matters worse, my wife and I have joined a "Learn to Run" program with the Running Room. We're supposed to get in two training runs before our Thursday group runs. I'm happy to say that I did the training run last night and we plan to do another tonight. Yes, it does hurt but the pain is telling me I'm alive and have actually used my body...in a good way.
Hope to get a pic of the finished work and post it here. Legs cramping...gotta go!
Sunday, August 22, 2004
The Cold
The sun would not keep him warm.
His breath left his nostrils in a thick fog.
He looked around the barren land.
There was no horizon.
It seemed as if there was a circular wall of white and blue surrounding him.
His feet would not stop for he had to reach his destination.
He started to wonder if he would make it.
The tips of his fingers were numb.
The crunching of snow under his feet echoed through his mind
until he only heard one sound.
He looked up at the sun to break the hypnotic spell.
It burned his eyes but it felt good for it warmed his whole body.
His heart beat like tribal drums.
He felt his pulse in his hair.
Temperatures dropped like tears from a crying baby's face.
He could see his home now.
As he grabbed the doorknob, his skin froze to the metal.
His hand mechanically shot back as blood covered the doorway.
Inside he stepped.
He could not feel his ripped flesh hanging from his hand,
but it was good to be warm.
His breath left his nostrils in a thick fog.
He looked around the barren land.
There was no horizon.
It seemed as if there was a circular wall of white and blue surrounding him.
His feet would not stop for he had to reach his destination.
He started to wonder if he would make it.
The tips of his fingers were numb.
The crunching of snow under his feet echoed through his mind
until he only heard one sound.
He looked up at the sun to break the hypnotic spell.
It burned his eyes but it felt good for it warmed his whole body.
His heart beat like tribal drums.
He felt his pulse in his hair.
Temperatures dropped like tears from a crying baby's face.
He could see his home now.
As he grabbed the doorknob, his skin froze to the metal.
His hand mechanically shot back as blood covered the doorway.
Inside he stepped.
He could not feel his ripped flesh hanging from his hand,
but it was good to be warm.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Yes...another groaner!
A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."
Friday, August 06, 2004
E-mail Blog...these guys are good!
Technology these days is way beyond my comprehension. This is an excellent case-in-point. I posted this Blog via e-mail. The heading of this Blog is the e-mail subject and the text of the Blog is this message. Once I send it to my Blog e-mail address, it gets posted. How about that, friends!! I'm thinking of creating a website using a Blog. I haven't thought out the complete process yet but I'll give it a shot. Think about it...no domain name to buy, no hosting fees...posting via e-mail...sounds too easy.
Introducing...Alexander!
Here's our brand new nephew, Alexander. Ain't he the cat's pyjamas? We still have no idea what colour his eyes are...the dude's a professional sleeper!
Alexander the sleeper.
Alexander the sleeper.
Another Groaner
I went to the butcher's the other day and I bet him $50 that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high."
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Insomnia
The walls stare at me and wonder if I'll ever fall asleep.
The window looks outside, ignoring its inside environment.
The ceiling feels heavy on my head,
It is congesting my soul.
The closet, oblivious to my delusions, exists only to cause more delusions.
Blankets strangling my freedom,
Pillows pushing me forward, toward, onward.
I turn on my side and the world inside follows.
Who is watching my back?
It's facing the window for the whole world to see.
I can't see the corners of the room...they don't exist.
That's the space where solitude leaves.
Nothing enters and a void is created.
It swarms around my ignorance and rests upon my fears.
I hear the waves in my mind wash against the evil,
Slowly corroding them for the night.
Eyelids slam down against each other and the clock starts working,
Winding me down.
Imagination starts anew tomorrow.
The window looks outside, ignoring its inside environment.
The ceiling feels heavy on my head,
It is congesting my soul.
The closet, oblivious to my delusions, exists only to cause more delusions.
Blankets strangling my freedom,
Pillows pushing me forward, toward, onward.
I turn on my side and the world inside follows.
Who is watching my back?
It's facing the window for the whole world to see.
I can't see the corners of the room...they don't exist.
That's the space where solitude leaves.
Nothing enters and a void is created.
It swarms around my ignorance and rests upon my fears.
I hear the waves in my mind wash against the evil,
Slowly corroding them for the night.
Eyelids slam down against each other and the clock starts working,
Winding me down.
Imagination starts anew tomorrow.
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