ARCHIVE: May, 2006

So what have I been up to lately? Last Thursday Tim & I drove down to Waterloo for interviews. We interviewed for Jr. Support Technician in the Fall work term. We found a guy who we think will work out great. In the meantime, all's well at work with our current co-op (JC) and relatively new hire, Chris. The team's working well together and we're ready to handle new challenges as they come.

This weekend Jen went to Montreal for the weekend for her friend Sommer's Stagette. A bunch of them went and had a great rate on a train & hotel... I believe it was only $75! The train alone is usually $150! I spent the weekend alone with Trixie. I came down with a nasty cold/flu and am still fighting it now. Tomorrow morning we're up bright & early to catch our flight to the West coast. So, until then, hope you're all doing well. Take care...

----- 05.23.2006 --------
I found a few minutes to spare so I thought I'd post a video that I find quite hilarious. First of all... turn your sound way up for this... it's much better if you have sound right from the beginning. Anyway, it's a video from Sunday night, lighting off fireworks in my parents' backyard. I hope you find it amusing as I do. I must have watched it atleast a dozen times. OK, without any further hype (and risk of ruining it), click here for the video. The video is about 3 MB, so some patience may be required. Enjoy!!! :)

----- 05.22.2006 --------
I hope everyone had an enjoyable, safe long weekend. Jen & I had a nice ride back from Windsor this afternoon. Smooth sailing on the 401... both ways, for that matter. The weekend itself was a lot of fun & relaxing. We got in Friday night and drove around the county (Essex) during the day on Saturday, hitting a few nursary's in search of flowers for my parents' garden. From there, Jen met a friend from her Yorkie group @ the mall, and I hit costco, doing everything in my power to stick to the list. And I did... but that place is tempting when you don't go often! Especially when you're used to Rabba price tags in Toronto!!! Saturday night we went out to celebrate Laura's birthday at "A-bars", a bar in Windsor. It was a lot of fun, and from there, we hit a 24/7 breakfast joint, then finally got home around 5 AM. It was great, I saw a couple of my friends (Justin & Kevin) who I haven't seen in well over a year, almost 2. They're both doing well. Sunday I helped wash off some patio furniture in preperation for summer and then Sunday night we set off some fireworks. It was fun! I have a hilarious video of one going off a little sooner then expected. Too funny.... if I get around to cropping & posting it, I will. And then this morning, Laura & I went for a blade down the Ganotchio trail. Not too far (10.1 KM), but far enough to add a notch to my blade-o-meter. Anyway, that about raps up my weekend. Hope you all had a great one as well! Later....

----- 05.19.2006 --------
Today's my sister Laura's birthday... Happy Birthday Laura! She's 27 today. Holy crap, that means I'll be 29 this year... in September. I figure I'd let you all know so you can start shopping for me now :) And then it's the big 3 - 0 next year. Yippee :) It's also Sleeman's birthday today too (my cat). It's 8... not sure what that is in human years. According to this page, he's 48!! So, it's off to Windsor tonight to celebrate both birthdays, and see my folks of course. It's a long weekend, so it should be enjoyable. I decided to take today off work, so that made it even longer. The main reason I decided to update my site now is to add my KM's from the blade Chris & I just went on. It was a pretty standard route... down to Humber Bridge & back. Although my watch says it was 16.4 KM's, it should be 16.7. It was 8.3 there and we turned around and took the same way back (Martin Goodman Trail). However, my watch stopped a couple times... I guess I hit a button. Anyway... my total for the year is a measly (sp?) 44.8 KM's. And May's almost gone! Hopefully I can get a few more in before the end of the month and bring that number up. I'll have to if I want to reach 500 !!!! But just as important, I need to outdo last year's pathetic 150 KM's. Anyway.... enough banter. Have a great weekend!

----- 05.15.2006 --------
First and foremost: "Happy Mother's Day" (belated). I hope all you Mothers were treated well yesterday.... I love you Mom! :)

This weekend Jen & I drove up to Montreal. I had to install a server in our MTL office that we had already configured in Toronto. It's a backup server that the other branches feed into, and then replicates all the info BAcK to Toronto to keep a complete copy of data in 2 braches at the same time. What does that achieve? Tape-less backups :) Total automation and geographical colocation to offer us enough protection that we could lose an entire building and the data will remain safe & sound. And with the virtualization we've implemented using VMWare, recovering is a snap because all hosts were "hardware-independant" to begin with. OK, enough of that.... I didn't even warn you before getting geeky on you.

So, after finishing up my work, I went back to Jen's Mom's place where we stayed the weekend. Driving there and back was great.... my first road trip with the Monte Carlo. When choosing a car, "highway driving" was right near the top of my list. And this car LOVES the highway! I just have to be careful I don't love it too much.... thanks to cruise control, I kept myself out of trouble. I also had a chance to use my GPS outside of the small map detail I could fit into my old 64 MB card. I put a 1 GB card in there and now have pretty much all of Canada on there, in great detail! The only detail left out was elevation, and even then I added some more detailed areas with elevation for Algonquin, Temagami, and any other place I think I'll be camping & canouing. The GPS worked great! It's not an auto GPS for say, so it doesn't have the fancy navigation a system like that would have ("Turn righ here.... etc"). However, it is very accurate and if you know how to read a map, it works awesome! From Jen's Mom's place, I saved the waypoint and then looked up the MTL office and saved it to. That's how I got there. And getting home was even easier. I followed my "bread-crumb trail" back to the other waypoint. It's only of those gadgets that I just won't know how I did with out.... with an impact as powerful as that of a cell phone! If you do a lot of driving, especially to places unknown, a GPS is a must for you!!! Anyway, I better shower up & get to work. It's still early Monday morning, but I want to get an early start on the day. Cheers everyone!

----- 05.03.2006 --------
Although I felt especially beat at work today, I managed to still meet Chris at the gym afterwards for a workout. And I guess it was on my way from work to the gym the weather was so nice that I decided I just had to go for a blade after. So I did... booted down to humber bridge & back. Good for 16.7 KM on the blade-o-meter. The nice thing about the blade-o-meter is also what's bad about it: It doesn't move on its own! So, in order to "earn" a notch, I gotta get off my ass and blade. Although I struggled a bit since this is only my 2nd time out this season, and somehow a full month from the first time I was out. But all in all, it was a great blade. I think the best part is when you get fairly far and decide to turn around. For me, it was on the Humber Bridge. And at dusk, the view over the bay back at the Toronto skyline is gorgeous, especially on such a nice night as tonight. And the cool part is that the CN tower marks home. It's a good way to see how far I've just travelled, and a it feels even better to know that eventually I'll have made it all the way back. Atleast that's always been the goal ;) Anyway, it's 8:45 and I haven't eaten yet... time to stuff my face & void any good the workout & blade may have done me ;) Cheers!

----- 05.01.2006 --------
Hey May.... where the hell did you come from??? I did NOT see you comin! I'm a little blown away by the fact that we're 1/3 of the way through 2006. Don't get me wrong.... the first 1/3 was great... but definately quick!!!! And I have no doubts that the next 2/3 will fly by just as quick, if not faster.... especially with the summer factor. Summer Factor? Yeah... you know, that "Is summer almost here yet?" blending into "Oh no... summer's almost gone!". It always seems soooo short! I hope mine's full of camping :) With a car, hopefully it will also mean more fishing! I love to fish but rarely go... and I've lived across the street from Lake Ontario for how many years??!?!? 8??? And my excuse? ...no one else seems to be doing it or it's "too poluted". Both are pretty weak... time to get out there or think up some better excuses. All aboard the rambling train.....

Alright, what's new? Well, I hope you all had a chance to check out my pics from Cuba that I posted last week. It was a great week and last week was my first week back at work. I must say... it went pretty well. Now, do you go on Vacation to rest & recharge so you can get back and do better @ work? Or do you work so you can rest up & recharge on vacation? Or is it both? I'm really starting to think it's both because both are equally rewarding, but neither are all the fun when you run out of steam. Of course, running out of steam on vacation isn't as bad.... but you get the point, right? Speaking of points, what's the point of this update? None really... it's one of those ones that go on and on and on.... you win some, you lose some. I just feel like writing, and if you've gone this far, you obviously just feel like reading. Mutual. Nutshell: Saturday morning was a Bazaar to help support the Yorkie rescue that Jen's a part of. And earlier, before that, around 6:30, I drove my cousin ADK & his girlfriend Heather to the airport... they're off to China! He's been working his ass off and deserves a break!!! And yesterday (sunday) was the "Walk of Life" for the cardiac rehabilitation group. It was a great excuse to take Trixie for a nice long walk... and it was a beautiful day for it!!! What else? Oh ya... rented an XBOX 360 over the weekend. SO far it's pretty good, but it came with the standard AV cable so the video is so-so and the sound is only stereo.... no 5.1 with an optical cable... only 3 shitty RCA's. Oh well :( Anyway, it's still fun. Speaking of which, I'm going to go play now. All's well @ work and @ home.... I hope you can all say the same. Cheers....

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