el oh el

SO I guess Saturday was the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. On it they had this new "rap" video. It's just 2 dudes rappin' about absolution nothing, but its totally hilarious and catchy!
Apparently the new guy in the videos is part of a trio of guys that did comedy stuff in LA that got hired by SNL. The other 2 are now writers for the show.
So here are 2 other videos they did before SNL. The Nintendo one being VERY funny for any of us who played the old NES as kids.
Just 2 Guyz
Nintendo (Oh and a bit of bad language in this one)

Indoor Soccer League - Futsal

This is the indoor soccer league that I play in on Monday nights. It's a lot of fun and very competitive. I actually find it a quite harder work out than hockey too, although I am definitely a better in hockey.
I am on the "Rangers" and as you can see we are in second last. But we did tie the team in first last week, so we can be good apparently.
It's awesome that someone put it together because I really thought there would only be hockey to play this winter which I was a little sad about.

Lord of the Manor

So Anne is gone for 3 days, including today, and so I am the king of the castle. I have lot to do however, as I am finally finishing the walls of Maya's cubby hole which will be a sort of play room for her. We plan on showing it to her on Christmas.
I also have numerous presents to put together and wrap and general tidying to do.
It just may be possible that I may fit in 1 or 2 gaming sessions as well... ;)

Death to Santa Claus

Anne and I are not going to do Santa Claus with Maya. We both think his entire purpose is commercial and in directed contrast to the true meaning of Christmas. We give presents at Christmas because that is what the wisemen brought baby Jesus, not because some fat guy dressed in ridiculous clothes brought us gifts because we were "good".

So thus, when I took Maya to the Early Years Centre yesterday and at circle time 80% of the songs were about Santa, and none has any religious anything in them, I grew a little irritable.
I just find the whole concept of Santa, and what he represents in this day and age, totally contrary to the Christian message and what we should be thinking about. And it causes all sorts of strife as well. Anne's sister, for instance, has renounced Christmas all together in her household, something clearly brought on by a Santa-centric society. They are not giving or receiving any presents, which is something I cannot blame them for considering how people and kids seem to act this time of year.
We even recently hear a parent admonishing her child, "You had better start behaving, Santa doesn't bring presents to bad little boys". Stuff like that really makes me mad.

So of course this brings up the whole problem of what an anti-Santa Maya will say to other kids.
For example:
Little boy: "Santa, brought me a new computer, I must have been really good!"
Maya: "Santa didn't bring you the computer, your parents did. Santa doesn't exist, stupid"
Little boy: "Does too, does too!" *cries* *runs away*

I hope to teach her a little diplomacy in this area so this doesn't happen. But it probably will, oh well. Obviously she knows about Santa now, but we will teach her what we think about it.
I think, overall, this will make Christmas easier for my family in the years to come.

Tall Pines Pictures

This will be the last Tall Pines post until I have the video footage.

Here are pictures Ian and ourselves took (mostly Ian though).

Ours our the first few, then you can tell that Ian's photography skills far surpass ours.

Johnston makes it around the "S" bend! His girlfriend screams shrillly, as if cheering, in the background. 

Rally of the Tall Pines

So on Saturday, Anne, Ian, Heather, Chester, Tim and I ventured up to Bancroft to watch the rally. Since it was a bigger group this time things moved a little slower and we missed the first couple of cars on the first pass, but no big deal. But say them all the next 2 times at that first spectator area and had a great time. Everyone listed to the advise to dress warm and cold toes were the only complaint. The night stages viewing also impressed everyone a great deal as well.
It was Anne's, Heather's, Chester's and Tim's first time at a rally and they seemed to have their expectations exceed. Anne had even said how we will do things differently next year thus inferring that she plans to go again?! Chester was quite pleased to have gone and had a great time, but I didn't talk to Tim enough to know how he felt.
Anne and I also met Ian's girlfriend Heather for the first time and were very pleased to have done so. We both enjoyed her company immensely. She and Anne got along great and we can't wait to get together again soon.
So it was an excellent day and Maya was apparently an angel for Andrea and John who graciously cared for her all day. I am sure Anne will recount her experience as well.

This Hyundai Tiburon won the rally. Definately the smoothest driver we saw all day. A well deserved win.
He was just coming off of a fairly sharp turn here. 

Across the bridge. This guy came in second.

Only one car really can into the sides of the bridge when we were at this spectator part. But they didn't damage anything or slow down at all. 

Another action shot from last years rally. Pat Richard, the driver here, did not finish due to technical difficulties but is the #1 north american driver. I hope he makes it this year.
There are tons of really good entries so far this year and its look like more top cars are entered than last year already. 

It's time to Raaallllllyyyyy

The Rally of the Tall Pines is on November 26th.
Who wants to come this year? Anne is coming and we are meeting with my friend Ian and his girlfriend Heather. I have some other "maybes" but I need some firm commitments so I know of I want to try and borrow my parents van. We leave early Satuday morning to make it to Bancroft at about 9-9:30am and won't be back until well after midnight. It should be an awesome day, with fast cars, good food and good friends. Dress warm though. 

big guy with a beard

Today Anne and I went to Home Depot. While we were in the line at the check out Anne went to grab one last thing. No one was behind us so I stepped sideways to grab a couple of 9V batteries. While I was trying to grab a 2 pack of them an older couple come up to the line and so I stepped sideways in front of them (and their load of lumber I might add) and said "oh sorry in am in the line I was just grabbing some batteries". Not a big deal.. or so I though.
The old guy says "Oh look at me, I am a big guy with a beard and I can do what I want!". I laugh in a my head until I realize he is serious. I turn around, mouth agape and say " No seriously we were here and just were looking at batteries for a second.". The man replies bitterly, "oh well then, if you are in such a hurry just go right in front of me then!".
I just shrugged and turned around. Then a new till opened and they got in first of that new line.
I guess I looked suitably menacing today :)

Maya the Flower Girl

Here is not one, not two, but 80 pictures of Maya the Flower Girl. Once we got her in the dress she loved it. For the second set we took in the park the other day, she was actually pretty photogenic.

A nice fall trail.
On the Bruce Trail near Kimberey. For fun we walked up one of Talismans most difficult run on our way back to our car.

Some nice fall scenery. The view from some spots was amazing. 

We stopped for lunch on the trail, Maya enjoyed sucking on the hydration pack. 

The trail was a bit rough and the leaves were hiding a lot of the roots and stones, but Maya walked for some of it. 

Here is a coool animated music video, its electronic music featuring asian instruments. I have no idea who the group is.
Be warned, the are mermaid boobies. Gasp!

Want to teach in Japan? Think twice.

Here is a great site, kind of like a blog, detailing an american's experiences while teaching english in japan. Its absolutely hilarious. Japanese are very strange people.
I am glad "Kancho" isn't something kids are into around here.

We lost our cell phone and...

A couple of months Anne lost our cell phone. We think she took it on a transfer and since then we haven't seen it. We don't use it for anything except to keep in the car for emergencies and other calls one occasionally has to make on the road. I don't think we have every used more than 15 minutes in a month.
So today I finally get around to going to the Bell Store (its exactly 2 blocks away) and do something about it.
It ends up that our plan had an upgrade option and I get a new phone for free. Then the phone I supposed to get was missing something and it was the last one so I get an even better one. So we ended up with this one, which is exactly what I was hoping for but doubted it would happen without a lot of money exchanging hands. We will probably start using it more, just so we can play with it :)
Not only that, but apparrently CAA members get deal when you get a $20/mo rate which will save us even more!
So everything working out very well. I think we better lose this phone in a couple of years so we can see what kind of deal we can wrangle then too.

Birthday Boy!

So today is my birthday, yay!(?) I am 28, which is just fine with me.
Anne made me that black forest cake, which was pretty good, especially when all mashed up with chocolate ice cream.
I ordered myself a new mouse pad and mouse feet which I am looking forward to.
I also was got a box of birthday cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crush) which is my most favortisting cereal evar.
That about sums up birthday activities for the day.
We have to leave for my parents shortly as they are moving today into these new house in town. The funny thing is that there new house isn't quite finished year so they will be living in squalor for a few weeks.

Rally Germany

Here is my Rally Germany Highlights (40MB).
This one is my favorite after my Finland Highlights.

Mountain Biking

My friend Ian came up for the weekend and we mountian biked here and here and here. The Bruce Peninsula Mountain Biking Adventure Park was one we had not tried before and we were both very impressed. As you can see in the picture there were some great obstacles and the trails were very well done. Its a lot rougher than the Brant tract and you have to slog through some of the rough sections. I am going to try and make it there a couple of times more this year for sure.

Virtual Death

Someone I knew and corresponded with on Shacknews pretty regularly died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was a pretty well know shacker and so after realizing he hadn’t posted in a few days people discovered after a bit of googling that he was dead. It seems his death was pretty much his fault as he was going way to fast on the motorcycle and couldn’t stop in a time and slid into a stopped car on the road. There is even a thread on the message boards where people told him he was going to be killed sooner or later if he kept doing going like that on his bike.
Anyway, I am surprisingly bummed about it. We were both big rally fans and were planning to play against each other in one of my rally games shorting. I was even about to message him to plan a time this week just before I found out. I never even spoke to the guy in real time, athough now I really wish I could have met him. It was always through the message boards or private messaging. The other sad thing is I don’t think he was a Christian either.
Anyway, R.I.P. “Harkov”.

Ultra fast post!

Last Wednesday I got a call from Bell offering a deal where for 5$ more a month I can have 5Mbs internet and a Modem/router/wireless hub. 5Mbs is pretty darn good for a small rural town if you ask me, so I snatched that deal up. Goodbye 3Mbs
"slowness"!
So Monday morning the new hub is delivered and last night the High Speed Ultra speeds kicked it. In general surfing we won't probably notice a difference, but since we average about 28GB of data downloaded a month, I figure I will notice somewhere.
For reference, it now takes me 45 minutes to download this 1.4GB Dungeon Siege II demo. Not too shabby.

Poor Rav4

On the little sticker in the corner of the windshield it says the car is due for its next service at 128000 km. Well since we are now at 133000km made an effort and finally got around to making an appointment for it, which ended up being scheduled at 3pm this afternoon.
Not 5 minutes after that, Anne gets a call for an emergency transfer to Owen Sound and rushes off to work and won't be back in time. Foiled again!
So now its set for 9:30am on friday which should be doable since Anne should be home from her night shift by then (but will probably be late now).

Ninjas are everywhere!

Just look at this dop secret footage.

Rally Finland Highlights

Here is my Rally Finland Video (59 MB - It will play in Windows Media Player)

If you want to download one video of mine, this one is it. Lots of jumps, high speeds and crashes. Great music too. Just remember you have to create a free account at fileshack.com to download it.

Camping with Americans...

So it looks like we are camping in Meaford with Anne's sister Kathie and her family for the rest of the week. They are up from North Carolina visiting. So tomorrow we head off to the Keady Market and Sauble beach first and the rest of the week is unknown.
I hope to get some much needed mountain biking in.

Credit card fraud

This week I had a call from the bank right after a purchased a computer for someone off of NCIX. Apparently there was a fraud alert for my card # so the immediately canceled it and are sending us new ones. But now the person I am building a computer for has to wait another week :(. Plus they said they would overnight courier it, that was last Wednesday and I still haven't seen them. And now it doesn't look like we will be her all week, so I don't know what's going to happen.
Oh well, at least I will have a new expiry date, the old card expired in November anyway.

Canoeing

Today Anne, Maya and I went canoeing. We borrowed my parents very old and heavy canoe, tied it precariously to the top of the RAV and drove to Paisley. We dropped our bikes off at the north end of town and then drove to Dr. Milne park (where we were married) at the south end of town. Anne just about killed herself (more than once) helping get the canoe off the roof (and on and off again later) and went down the Saugeen.
Maya really needed a nap and thus was quite upset at finding herself sitting in the middle of a canoe in the middle of a river, and so for a little bit screamed and pointed at the shore. However, she then dosed off for a while and was content until she bonked her head and got cranky again as we approached the town hall (which is along the river in the centre of town). Fortunately a dock is there and so we stopped and Anne tried to breastfeed her to sleep which took about half and hour.
When she did finally fall asleep, I hop in the canoe Anne puts her in the bottom, but with her head under one of the railing thingies going across the canoe. Maya then starts to wake up and freak out a bit and Anne is now in the canoe and just pushed off. Maya is crawling on her belly towards me and I am trying to push her backwards so she will sit up in the centre. I am not sure what happened but the next thing we know the canoe tips and throws Anne and I in the water but Maya manages to somehow stay in (she was wearing a lifejacket though). The water is only about chest deep so we pull the waterlogged canoe back to the dock we just left and put Maya back on the dock. After a bit of hassle we get the water out of the canoe.
Anne finally put Maya back to sleep again and she stayed asleep for the rest of the ride once we got going again. We enjoyed rest of the trip from the dock to the north bridge and the bike back to the car was nice too.
The one thing we have decided is that next time we go canoeing it will be with a much lighter canoe, that crazy old Fiberglas thing of my parents is way to heavy.

Super Glue

Whenever I get around to purchasing super glue, which is usually long after the last tube has dried out, I find about 20 things to use it for. Shoes, sandels, computer parts, plastic things, pots, and so much more. Then the tube sits for another year and goes dry.
This time we are attemping to foil the plot and have purchaed two tubes of super glue. Luke and Anne win!

Waves at Sauble

One of my favorite things about the summer is when its windy and there are big waves at sauble beach. Yesterday was kind of a stormy windy day, so after doing what we needed in Owen Sound with headed over to Sauble to see how the waves were. They were great.
Now, they have been better, but I was able to body surf well and have a lot of fun. Anne and I took turns while Maya played in the sand and in the car. Hopefully the weather is like this 2 or 4 times more this year.

Bike Stuff

Since I got my mountain bike, I have had some problems with the crank (that thing that attaches to your pedals) and front gear set. The left crank keeps coming off and the chain comes off on sharp bumps and it makes a grinding noise. The trouble is that all of the problems could be attributed to my being quite rough on the bike and riding it hard. The problem is that I haven't been doing that (thought I wish I were:) ).
So yesterday I took it back to Jolley's and basically told them I wasn't impressed with the problems I have been having, especially considering the money I spent on the bike. They looked it over and asked me what I had been doing with it, etc. Then they said they would replace the the whole crankset and gearset for free! Excellent. So in a week or so my bike should be tip-top once again. We will be supporting them with purchases in the future.

In the mean time the tightened everything up and Anne and I had a great bike ride on the Tom Thompson Trail in Owen Sound yesterday. Though I don't recommend it on a bike without any suspension, the gravel they use is pretty rough in spots.

Rally Argentina Highlights

Here is my highlights of WRC: Rally Argentina
http://sirx.shackspace.com/rally/wrcargentina05highlights.avi
Lots of jumps and water splashes.

George is missing :(

Where's CSI: Hanover when you need them...
Our cat, George, has been missing since last Friday when he did not come home after being let out some time in the afternoon. He has never been gone more than a few hours at a time before. We have contacted all the local animal agencies, the veterinary Hospital, the police, and talked to every neighbor and person in the area. He has just vanished. We of course are holding out that he will just show up meowing at our door at some point soon, but as the days roll by the hope becomes more faint. Anne, hasn't been as upset about it as I expected but I am sure it will hit her when all hope gives out.
Also, it doesn't look like our other cat, Kitty, who is 18 years old, is handling the weather to well. So we will see how that all goes...

Happy Anniversary

Today is our seventh anniversary! Yay! We celebrated by doing nothing in particular as usual. Anne worked nights all weekend and had a meeting tonight. I had soccer as well.
We may go out for dinner later in the week but we will see. I still plan on getting her a mothers day/anniversary present, but haven't been back to the jewelry shop yet.
If you include the 2 years we dated before getting hitched we have been together for one third of our lives. Which seems long until you consider how likely it is that we will be together for probably 80% of our lives until we die.
Anne says this post is boring, i don't care. :)

New Template

Because Blogger was obviously taking their sweet time in fixed that problem with the huge gap, I set us up with a new template. If anyone notices anything missing, let me know.

Live 8- Luke's Report

I really enjoyed Live 8. The drive there seemed pretty quick and was uneventful, as well as the trip home.
We had excellent seats for the day, but unfortunatly as the day progressed and the crowd right at the stage got bigger we were overrun a little bit. Overall we really enjoyed the view and could see everything really well. There wasn't anyone overly obnoxious nearby either, just too many smokers :(. Seriously, I can't wait until the ban smoking in public, period!

As for the bands, the highlights of the day for me were Sam Roberts, Tragically Hip, Deep Purple, and Jet. Because we were so close to the stage, the sound was great. The highs weren't too high and the bass, although it rattled your vocal cords, was just within the tolerable range. It was great to have live music just physically massage you like that. Very awesome.
We also has enough food and water that we felt pretty good all day and just had to go for one refill of a water bottle. If you went to one of the more out of the way washrooms (ie 2 minutes from the main ones) there wasn't really a line up at all.

So all in all, it was a great experience and Anne and I had a great day together and can't wait for something similar to come along again.

Acropolis Rally Video

Acropolis Rally (Greece)
Here is this weeks highlight reel by me.(42MB)

Welcome to another edition of the Sebastion Loeb show! *sigh* With this rally he sets a new WRC record and ties another. He has now one 5 rallys in a row (new record), and one six of eight so far (ties a record). That and this is now just half way through the season.Petter Solberg, his main rival, suffered technical problems and finished 9th so basically Loeb is already looking like he has the season wrapped up. Hopfully he hits a bad streak soon, just to liven things up a bit.

Christian Bale Movie Night

So, two Christian Bale movies in 2 weeks eh?

Last night my brother and I went to see Batman Begins. I had been reading so many post on the Shack about how great it was, "best superhero movie ever", "I want its baby", etc, so I had to go and see it in the theatre like a respectable member of society.
It was awesome. One of the best movies I have seen this year. Bale was great as Batman and I found the rest of the cast quite enjoyable too.
PostDINK Rating: A

Lask week Anne and I watched Bale in the movie, The Machinist. It was quite enjoyable as well, but for entirely different reasons. The movie just flowed quite well and had an interesting story. We just slowly figured out what his problem was an the ending was quite satisfying. Oh and Bale was insanely skinny in it, like 119 lbs skinny. He put on about 50 pounds of right after filming this to be Batman. Crazy actors
PostDINK Rating: A

Post Problem (Scroll doooooown)

According to Blogger support its a problme at their end and they are trying to fix it. So I guess we just have to put up with it for now :(

Live 8

Those Live 8 tickets were sold in 21 minutes! And we got 2 of them!
So we plan on attending the event next Saturday and have my mom lined up to babysit Maya all day. Its should be great. We had to turn down a camping weekend unfortunately, but we will reschedule (call me anyway Andrea).
It's my first real concert, I guess having all the bands there at once makes up for all the ones I have missed, even if they aren't the newest and best Canadian talent available.

Well thats weird.

I am not sure whats up with the post being down below the sidebar. This is just testing it.

Pikes Peak

This weekend is the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
To celebrate, here is a very cool video. Its actually an award winning short film from 1990.
http://sirx.shackspace.com/rally/climbdance.avi

War of the Cat Jail

We may have mentioned in before, but across the street from us is a house of which the sole inhabitants are seven cats. That number has fluctuated over the last 3 years and has been up to 10 before. The cats all look pretty mangy and clearly inbred. There is no heating in the winter, and until recently there was no ventilation in the summer. It is basically a cat prison.
Once a day a man in a blue car comes and feeds them and does whatever else he needs to do to keep them alive and then leaves. He also tends to the yard and other little things.
The first year that Anne and I lived here we called around to find out what we could to help the cats. The local SPCA came a looked and said they couldn't really do anything because the cats basic needs are looked after and they don't appear to be abused. After they left the Crazy Cat Man (as we refer to him) left a note on the door of the cat prison chastising his "Nosy neighbor's" and saying how he loves the cats, blah blah blah. But he also parked a car in the driveway (which hasn't moved since)to make the house look more lived in.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I mentioned the situation to one of the councilors in town I know becuase the cats were sweltering in that bad heat. A week later an SPCA officer shows up at our door asking some questions. She asks for the cars license plate so they can track the guy down. She then leaves a ticket on the door of the cat prison, which you have to respond to in 24 hours. That evening when the Crazy Cat Man comes he opens all the windows for ventilation and leaves a note on the door addressed to the "Buzy-Bodies" about how he looks after the cats etc.. But apparently he doesn't phone back the SPCA. He also spends most of the next 3 days in the house do something. Maybe making the house look lived in?
So a couple of days later they leave another ticket, saying the cats are going to be taken in 24 hours if he doesn't respond. They are not impressed by the note on the door which has changed since the original note. The Crazy Cat Guy comes by later and then leaves a note for the SPCA saying how he tried to contact them and his partner is in the hospital and sob sob sob.
Since then not much has happened. According to the SPCA, they still have to talk to him personally and they haven't. Nothing has changed at the cat jail either, other than the ventilation. But apparently the Town in interested in finally doing something about this, so hopefully in a week or so we can report a resolution to the war.
It is kind of fun though spying on the house and seeing what notes and stuff he has left.

Rally Videos

I now have links to my rally stuff on the side bar under Rally Videos and Links.
After each WRC rally I create a highlights clip that I post on a few forums and sites and quite a few people enjoy. I thought maybe some of you would as well. So check them out and let me know what you think.
You probably need these Xvid and Divx codecs installed to view them, so make sure you do that first.
My latest is highlights of the Rally of Turkey. (135MB)

Rally Video

Here is the video from STPR. Its 250MB in size and you need the Divx codec to watch it.
I don't know if I like how it turned out, so I plan on doing it again some time and just doing the highlights as this one has all the footage of the cars. You need to create a Fileshack account to download it.
Let me know what you think, and ideas or criticism would be great.

That was fun...

The rally was awesome. We didn't really take any pictures but did take video of everything. So I will have that up some time in the near future.
This year was a lot more fun than last year probably due ot the fact that we knew what to do and where to do this time. But the competition was a lot tighter was well. For the first half of the day the top 10 people were within 1 minute of each other and driving like mad. Next year should be even better.

Sunday after we got back, we watched Star Wars Episode 3 and were both kind of disappointed. There were just too many really bad and cheesy scenes for the good ones to overcome. And Lucas totally tacked on bits at the end ot make it mesh with Episodes 4, 5 and 6. It gets a low B- from me.

Then Monday, Ian can up here to get some country air and do some mountain biking. We only got out to two trails. Allan Park was pretty good, but the Brant Tract we did yesterday was great, it has something for every skill level.

Job Update

This week I will have been unemployed for 2 months :(
I called Wightman this morning, who hadn't bothered to get back to me for the last 3 weeks, and I finally got a hold of my contact there. He said that they had put an add in the Kitchener record and by extension the Toronto Star and now had hundreds of resumes. So I guess that opportunity is defunct.
Bruce Power still hasn't done anything with my application there, and they are pretty sure they are going to have to re-advertise the position. So that will be another 2-3 months of bureaucracy.
So that's pretty much all that's going on job wise...

Cool

I don't subscribe to a lot of things, but one subscription I do pay for is a Mercury account at www.shacknews.com . I really enjoy the community of the sites chatty's and visit it at least a couple of times a day and use their fileshack service quite often.
This year the site is doing some major upgrades and enhancements. One of the first things is I now have 1 GB of space online to put stuff, anything, just because I subscribe. So I think I probably will stick some sort of web site on there as well as a few other useful files. Anyway, I just thought it was cool and needed to nerd out there for a second. :)

Growing up

So Maya did a first ever today: she woke up from a nap, got out of the bed, came downstairs, found her sippy cup, and came to the open door where I was working on our mailbox. She was quite content about the whole thing too.
This will be a better accompishmetn when she wakes up from a nap in her own room where she went to sleep on her own accord. But thats probably a couple of years down the road at the soonest.

Calling all Rally Peoples!

In 3 weeks is the Susquehannock Trail ProRally in Wellsboro Pennsylvania on June 4th. I have a camp site reserved about 10 minutes from the rally. We will be leaving for Wellsboro on Friday June 3rd, so whoever comes will have to take that day off to ride with the group.
Right now I think its just Ian and I but more people are definately welcome.
Please call or e-mail me if you want to come. It is a lot of fun and the area the rally takes place is a very nice looking area. The drive is only about 5 hours from Toronto.

Employment Update

Or rather, lack there of.
I still haven't heard from Wightman, I called yesterday and left a message but haven't heard anything. I still haven't heard from Bruce Power, although I am sure I will, it is just taking time due to some problems over there. I haven't heard from either of the job agencies that I have send stuff to, and there still hasn't been anything listed in the local papers or on the web.
That about sums up things for the last week.

Anne is on the cutting edge of hip.

Last week an opportunity came up to buy a 4th-gen 20GB iPod from a friend for a very good price. Even better, he was willing to wait until I had a job before I actually paid for it.
So Anne got an iPod for her birthday!!
So far its really good. We filled it up half-way with the songs we had and I am sure it will be full before long.
Anne's only complaint so far is that I have more songs on it than she does. :)
I am sure we will post more about it as there are so many things you can do with it besides just music and its really really cool and easy to use.

Unemployment Update

As of today, I have been unemployed for one month. I am not sure how I feel about this as I still am enjoying my time at home. Unfortunately I do feel as though a bit of despair is creeping in as I still don't have any more prospects than I did two weeks ago. Wightman still hasn't decided what to do about a possible position for me, and Bruce Power still hasn't gotten organized enough to have interviews yet.
There was a career fair in Walkerton last week where I did talk to a local furniture company that may be looking for someone sometime in the future but didn't know more than that. That's really the only new job thing.
There has been absolutely nothing in the local papers or the government job sites either.

I still feel pretty good about things overall I guess. I don't miss working at the hospital at all. I haven't worried about it or really thought about what's going on there for more than a few seconds here and there, which surprises me and makes me realized how dissatisfied I was there.

Sping Activity

For Anne's birthday on April 9th we went for a hike on the Bruce Trail, we went on a portion that goes through the Beaver Vally. These are the pics, enjoy.

On a side note, Picasa 2 from Google is great, I don't know why anyone would pay for an album program with that one availble. You can make any changes to pictures that you need, and it even created the above album nicely, and you can post pics on your blog through it. Gotta love Google!

Unemployment - Week 2

If I learn one thing from this experience, its that things are really out of my control and in God's hands.
The Senior Computer Hardware Technician position I am waiting for an interview for at Bruce Power is still in limbo over there. They don't think they will even start scheduling interviews for a couple of weeks. I still think this is the position that I am meant for and I am curious to see how it works out. Pray about this one.
However, one interesting development this week is that when I sent my resume to a few local companies I received an excited reply from a manager at Wightman Telecom. This was someone I had dealt with in the past and he had always been kind of impressed with me, so when he realized I was looking for a job he was quite keen to find me something there. The job he has in mind really wasn't within my experience, abilities or interest, so he passed me on to another manager with high recommendations. This is where it is interesting, Wightman as some very cool stuff coming up in the future that I think would be awesome to be involved in. However, they seem much more interested in getting me in to a supervisory role and I want more hands on. Ideally, I want a good mix of both (because you get paid more this way). I will probably meet with them this week and see if they can fit me into what they have planned. We will see what the Lord works out for me.
Unfortunately, there has been nothing available in the way of jobs listed either online or in local papers.
In the mean time, I really enjoying being at home, doing things with Maya and being with Anne more. Its going to be hard to go back to work when it does happen.

Unemployment - Day Seven

It's really day three of a concentrated job search, and of that I have only had today as a full day to do it because of computer work I am doing for a friends business. He can only afford me on a very limited basis though.
So far the job search has not been successful at all. When looking in the paper and sites in the past I have noticed that IT jobs seem to come and go in clumps. One week there will be like three or four computer jobs listed and than none for a couple of months and it sure seems like its a dry spell right now. There has been nothing listing on the local sites, local papers, monster.ca or anything else. But it hasn't even been a week yet.
The one thing that I do keep hearing is that Bruce Nuclear is highering and as far as I know I am still expecting an interview for a computer technician job I applied for there in December. So far that is the only lead to anything.
The one thing that is hard is the fight down the rising panic. Questions like, "What if I can't find anything, what if I have to take some crappy low paying job just to make ends meet?".
Overall I think the Lord has really put me at peace with the whole thing, and I know He has something good in store for me as long as I follow the path.

Luke WINS!

A couple of weeks ago I entered a contest at one of my rally news websites, Rally Planet.
Well I won a 1 year subscription to WRC+ which is worth about $92 Canadian.
Very cool, this is currently the best way to keep track the WRC rallys during the weekend before its on TV, or in my case on the internet to download.
It has live stats, interesting articles, and tons of video and pictures. All of it exclusive.
I haven't gotten the log in info yet, but I was asured I would get it soon. As long as its before Rally New Zeland next weekend.

Also, I found out that the time share my parents have in Mexico is a meer 2 hours from Rally Mexico which happens in march. I am definaly going to have to squeeze a vacation in over then and make the trip.

Looking forward to that Pennsylvania Rally in june. I hope this unemployment thing doesn't mess it up :(

Unemployment - Day Two

Today was pretty busy. Slept in to about 9am and then got ready to go to work for 10 to ask what my options were regarding pension contributions as well as get my personal belongings.
Also there was Lea, the person from the Grey Bruce Health Services who will be looking after the local stuff there. He is a pretty nice guy but not the best technically. He let me clean up my personal stuff off of the computer there and server before anyone else could get at it. Also got password and other server stuff cleared up.
Then I went around and said goodbye to all the departments, most of which I spent a lot of time in over the 3 and a half years I was there. Most people were pretty shocked and more then a few tears were shed. I found the whole thing quite amusing from my perspective (I don't know why, I believe the Lord has given me a lot of peace regarding this whole thing) and laughed a lot and didn't feel sad at all. I was surprised at the amount of anger from others though, a lot of people couldn't believe that the hospital had decided to get rid of me, and a few also suspected they were on the chopping block soon to. We will see.
It's pretty a much a given that a few hospitals will be closed up here in the next few years. There just isn't enough patients in the system here to make it viable for the number of hospitals in the area. A lot of nurses are leave in the next few years so maybe they will work with that. I may be really fortunate to be let go when I have been.
I worked the afternoon for my friend Nathan who runs a consulting business, but he can't really afford me. This prevented me from doing any job hunt stuff. There were no computer jobs in the paper.
On Monday, things really going as far as the job hunt. I will get a few things done over the internet in the mean time while Anne is working nights this weekend.

Hospital Cut-backs...

Me.. :(

So this afternoon I got laid off. It's been kind of a surreal experience so far.
Anyway, I am going to be looking for a job, anything computer technical anything will do. So if anyone knows of anything, please let me know.
I am waiting for a call back from Bruce Nuclear about a Senior Computer Tech job that I was apparently on the short list for, so hopefully that works out. If it doesn't I will be scrounging around the area to see what I can find.
I will keep you guys up to date.

P.S. Don't tell my Mom, I don't want to deal with that.

The Hockey Season is over :(

Today was the final tournament for church hockey and we lost. We figured we would lose the first one and did. We were pretty confident about the second one, but couldn't see to click as a team today and could do it. It was a tie at the end and so there was a best of 5 shootout which was cool. The best of 5 was tied and so it was sudden death shootout and we lost.
I think I have one last game next weekend, but since its Easter, who knows.

Now the snow can go away and it's on to Mountain Biking and Soccer!!

New Developments

This week has been an interesting week as far as Maya goes. Here is what she has learned this week.

• Go down the stairs. SHe just decided that she can . She backs up to the steps, crawling feet first , and goes down fairly quickly. We have tried to teach her this in the past, but it wasn't very successful. Its quite nice and reasuring to not be worried about her tumbling down the stairs trying to walk down them.
• Climb up into her high chair. Now we can say, "Maya, it's time to eat!", and she will run over to her chair and pull herself up into it. Its pretty neat to see. She doesn't have a 100% success rate yet so we do have to watch her, but she does a good job of knowing when she isn't going to make it and lets herself down.
• Climb into the bed. This is probably just an extention of the high chair climbing but its nice not having to pull her into it all the time.

Long weekend...

No we didn't get an extra day but it felt like it to me.
Anne was working nights all weekend and Maya was sick. This meant that Maya did not sleep well at night and we had to make ourselves scarce during the day so Anne could sleep. Maya coughed a lot at night and kept waking herself up, and then wouldn't let me put her down so I could sleep. So I was very tired at work yesterday. At least this allowed me to watch the first 2 days of the Mexico WRC and the first 3 episodes of Last Exile, but I think I would have rather been sleeping.
Saturday was a good day though, I bought this bike, a Brodie Brat. I can't wait for the snow to clear up so I can ride it! Of course I am not allowed to spend any more money for a couple of months now :)
Also, my church team won our second playoff game which mean we are garanteed a least 2 games in the tournament this coming Saturday. We play the #1 team first and we haven't won against them this year so it will be challenging for sure.

A sad trip...

On Monday Anne's grandmother, Christina McCutcheon died, it wasn't unexpected and she had lived a long life so it wasn't a terribly sad occasion. The funeral was in Huntsville on Wednesday which was a long drive but it was nice to spend time together and get away from work.
An Anglican reverend gave a nice eulogy, and the family gathered afterward for snacks and fellowship. It was nice to see people, most of whom I have only met once or twice before.
On the way back we had a very nice visit with my Grandad and Nana in Stayner and drove through very bad weather from there to Hanover.
Maya was sick at the funeral, but still well behaved and somewhat cheery. She slept pretty much the whole time she was in the car.
That was about as exciting as this week got.

Full Metal Alchemist

Last night I finished watching the last couple of episodes of Full Metal Alchemist. It was one of the most enjoyable anime series I have watched. The important characters were fully fleshed out and there was a great blend of action, comedy and drama. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Anime.
Next up is the Naruto series, I have the first season downloading now and I have heard a lot of good things about it. Plus it has ninjas! You can't go wrong with that, becuase they are the Real Ultimate Power.

Hockey Day in Hanover

Had one of my end of year tournaments today. This weekend it was an invitational church tournament in Flesherton. There were 3 or churches from the immediate area, one from Owen Sound and one from Barrie and I don't know about the other. We did not do very well :( .
We lost the first game, tied the second one, and lost the last one. It was still a lot of fun and there were no major mishaps or incidents which is suprising as there usually is.

However the big one was tonight as it was the first game of our church league playoffs. We have lost the last 2 or so games and so needed to get back on track. The game was extremely close and if we hadn't been so tried from playing 3 games earlier in the day I think we would have destroyed them. The game was very tight and tied 1-1 with 1 minute remaining. We got the puck in their end, I fed it to a winger (I was centre as usual), he fed it back to the point who got just in the bottom corner of the net with a slapshot. We hung on for the win!
So we have one more playoff game next Saturday, then the tournament the weekend after. I think we can take it this year for sure.
The only incident was when a guy who had really been harrasing me all night, (pushing, holding my stick, hooking, etc.) really shoved me after the whistle in front of their goalie. He got in my face about my stick in the goalies crotch and I relpied that I was just trying to get the puck through because thats what you're supposed to do before the whistle goes. ANyway, I was hoping the guy was going to shove me or take a swing so they would get a penalty. But then one of our guys come roaring in and totally rocks the guy into the boards. Fortuntely they didn't score on the power play and the guy stayed off me for the rest of the night :) Lot's if fun.

Toronto

Tomorrow we are going to Toronto. The primary mission consists of 2 parts. One is to go the the International Bike Show and the second is to visit the Whole Foods Market. I think you can guess who is excited about what. We plan on getting bikes for ourselves if we can find good prices. It should be fun.

Let it snow, let it snow...

So we are going skiing tonight and I don't know why but I just can't seem to get into it this year. I know I will have lots for fun once we are out on the slopes, but I just am not excited by it like I have been in the past. I don't' think its the fact that we have to bring Maya along, because she is a lot of fun when we are there.
Anyway, I hope there is lots of snow and lots of good jumps. So far this year I have been getting huge air off some jumps and I am getting better at the half pipe. I am a little wary however of my right knee because I still don't think its 100% from when I hurt it last August. On top of that the season is going so fast, I don't know how many more times we are going to get out.

Anne's Thoughts- It just makes a long night. Fun but long.

And the Oscar goes too...

For the past couple of weeks Anne and I have been practicing for a skit we did this past Sunday at Church. It was about irresponsible spending and the premise was Anne and I arguing about how she was spend too much money and didn't really care. It only took about 3-4 minutes to do on the stage and was quite fun. We did it in front of each of the three services right before the sermon and then Pastor Claran tied it into the message which was about tithing and Godly spending.
What made it interesting was that Anne worked Saturday night and didn't really get any sleep that afternoon. She got 2 hours while on her shift but was pretty tired but the time we showed up at the church to do the skit in front of the 8:30am service. So by the end of the morning she had be up for most of the past 36 hours.
Regardless, the first run through was the worst as we missed a middle chunk of the play but the congegration didn't' notice. The second run through we felt was a best one was we didn't miss any line and acted (we felt) quite well. The third time went excellent as well. People laughed a lot more then we expected (we didn't think it was that funny)
We are hoping that from this we can do a few more of these type of things a year as they are quite fun and can be our contribution to the Church.

Out with the old and in with the New

To me a blog is a great way to keep in touch with peoples lives. I can quickly find out what is going on in the bloggers life with a quick glance which to me sort of creates a type of community amongst a group of people that might otherwise not have any reason to keep in touch. Sure, sometimes posts are mundane or boring and other times they can be riveting or interesting but in the end it's a journal and a window into someone's life that you often care for.
So when someone thinks their blog is a burden or crutch and deletes the whole thing with very little warning it really pisses me off and makes me sad at the same time. I'll leave it that.

That said, we had an empty spot in our links and have added our niece Courtney's new blog! Its like totally new! So u peps should like go visit it rite now, K. I g2g now cause we r going to watch the totally nu ep of Carnivale . OMGWTFBBQ

Rally Vids

Here's some rally crashes I have on our web space that I had posted on the shack last week. I should let you guys enjoy them too.

Solberg crashes but recovers at Monte Carlo 2004
Anonymus Subaru WRX crashes coming off a hill at high speed (awesome)
Skoda driver Swartz crashes (almost off of cliff) at Monte Carlo 2005

Just a reminder that Ian and I do plan to go to Pennsylvania again this June for the STPR this year. Its on the first weekend of June, so anyone who might be interested in going with us please start thinking about it now.

I'd like to thank the following people for this free time...

Many, many, many thanks to Brenda and to Cheryl for looking after Maya yesterday so I could join the Superbowl festivities! I really apprcieate. I will get you tokens of that apprcieation later this week :)

Another lonely weekend *single tear*

So Anne abandoned Maya and I this weekend because she was working nights again. We managed to cope pretty good and found a good source of food by prying open floor boards with Maya's toys. I would lift them up just enough for Maya to fit her hand in and get a handful of termites for us to mash into a paste and eat with a straw, that was it was more palatable. She only lost 2 fingers but I glued them back on so I don't think anyone will notice.

Maya did sleep really good this weekend though. Friday night was bad but last night was the best ever. She only woke up 3 times (that I noticed anyway) and one of those times she put herself back to sleep. Its quite apparent that she understands that Anne isn't there so just deals with it by using the sippy cup and going back to sleep. I hope she is still used to it when Anne works Wednesday and Friday nights this week.

Because of this development I am not going to drink coffee anymore; it's back to tea for me. I started drinking it regularly after Maya was born to help with the lack of sleep, but I really feel it when I don't have it for a day or so now. Even as I type this I have a headache and feel fuzzy headed which I am sure is caffeine related.

These are two movies I can't wait to see.

Sin City - Its based on a popular graphic novel. The style of trailier is unbelievable. Plus, its got that chick from Gilmore Girls! you can't go wrong!

Kingdom of Heaven - The Crusades, epic battles, and Legolas is leading them! you can't lose with this one either!

Look! A Post!

Sorry we haven't posted much this week. A small hardware change on the computer at home that was supposed to only take a couple hours ended up taking 2 days.
On the plus side, I now am running with raid 0 (for 240GB total space) on two SATA 120GB Segate drives with 8MB cache each. So very fast...

Anne will think this is stupid but

I think this movie trailer is hilarious, it looks like a super fun matinee:
Kung Fu Hustle

Swish, Swish

Anne and I went skiing last night. I think it was Annes second time this year but it was my first. It was a great night to be out on the slopes as the weather was clear and it was cold, but not too cold. The only downer was they had a lot of snow guns going which totally iced my goggles at one point.
I always surprise myself on my first run every year was it feels like I never stopped; I can zoom around, stop and hit jumps just like I always can. Very pleasing.
Anne's parents met us at the lodge and looked after Maya why we went out. They left about 9ish and we took a turn each after that.
Maya loves to run around in the open spaces and go up and down the stairs there and so was suprememly happy with the situation. She is quite similar to the energizer bunny in stamina I think. It was also funny that they guy who works at the bar remember her from last year when I would carry her in my arms and watch hockey while Anne skied and Maya slept.
We are planning on putting her on skis next year to see how she does, that will be a lot of fun.

The Bee's Knees

I am not sure quite when it happened (during Anne's pregnancy I think) but we have been much more into natural type solutions for personal grooming and hygene since.
The major turning point was when we were in the praries on our trip out west and Anne bought some bug repelent from a naturopath in a small town. This stuff was supposed to just help with relieving bits but the guy said if you take it before you go into a buggy area that they would stay off you. The weird thing was that you dropped it under your tongue, so I was half expecting some sort of crazy drug experiece. But lo and behold it worked like a charm.
So Anne on one of her shopping trips discovers Bert's Bee's products. This stuff is amazing and we can't recommend it enough. Our favorite product is the deodorant, as regualr stuff was always made my armpits reacts in various painful or irritation ways. This Herbal Deodorant works great and I have absolutely no reaction to it. So if you have any problems with your deodorant like I do, then use this stuff because its awesome. We also use the diaper cream, shaving soap, cuticle cream, hand cream, and a couple of other products.
You can find the stuff in a lot of health food places and other "natural" and health type stores. Try anything from the company out, its great stuff.

sunday, Sunday, SOMEDAY

Yesterday I went to Toronto to meet up with my City-dwelling friend, Ian, and five of his closest friends to go see Monster Jam at the Skydome. This year it was the regular trucks ( I can't remember what they called them) , Freestyle motocross jumping and of course the Monster Trucks. Curiously missing from the line up was the demolition derby.
The trucks were a lot of fun to watch this year as the drivers were really try and made some spectacular circuits. There were even a couple of cars contending as well but couldn't make the cut. No crashes in this but one guy did an extra lap and almost crashed into the other competitor, and other guy spun out off the side.
The freestyle guys were pretty good and did the whole gamut of tricks except backflips. It was pretty impressive but I think I prefer the Quad-bike racing from the previous years.
The monster trucks did quite well in their racing this year. Most races were pretty close and there were a few close calls. Unfortunately, the one I was cheering for, Predator, blew his transmission in the final against Grave Digger thus making it a bit anticlimactic.
The monster truck freestyle where they just drive around and smash stuff and do tricks and jumps, was okay but "Safe Auto" and Grave Digger went all out. Safe Auto went over every obstacle and then went for an extra minute afterward. VERY nice. Then Grave Digger came and did a similar run but jumped much higher and crashed the truck at the end and thus won.
Overall the show was quite good and everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The number of lackluster Monster Truck performances were just barely made up for by "Safe Auto" and "Grave Diggers" freestyle runs. I don't understand why they didn't have a demolition derby either, they have been there every other year and are a ton of fun to watch. Oh well, hopefully next year it will be better. Here the official recap.

This is gonna hurt...

So its about 1:45am, Anne is at work and Maya isn't sleeping, She is either scream, crying, or looking sad. I have to go to work for 8:30 as I have a meeting tomorrow that I have to go to as well as some meeting stuff I have to set up for people in the morning otherwise I would just call in sick. I don't think its going to be pretty unless Maya suddenly decides to go to sleep.
She would be fine if she wasn't so dependent on Annes breast throughout the night, I don't know why she is. She would sleep for longer stretches when she was younger. Its quite frustrating.

7:45am update - went to bed at 4am and got up at 5:30, Back to sleep at 6am and up at 7:30 and now i need to get ready for work.