I was nominated!

Just a little happy news. I was nominated for the St. Lawrence College Faculty of the Year Award. I didn't win... but just being nominated is awesome! Yeah for me!

BIG doesn't mean BAD!

Meet the newest member of our family. His name is "Big" and it's very fitting. He's a two and a half year old Rottweiler. He weighs 100 lbs and is a bit on the skinny side too! So he looks impressively scary! But he's not. He's the sweetest boy. He’s very friendly to strangers and he listens very well. And we haven’t heard him bark yet either! That’s a bit strange…. But I’ll take it (*grin*). Here’s the wild and wooly story of how we got BIG!

We had filled out an adoption application from a rescue agency called Adopt-a-Rott and we were working with one of their volunteers named Pam. Because Pam is in the business, she got an email through the “underground Rottie-Railroad” (that’s how I call it anyway) saying a new dog had just been rescued in the Montreal area named Big. I guess it was a story of neglect over there where they left him outside most of the time. The owner surrendered him to the rescue agency because her son wasn’t taking care of the dog (maybe that’s why he’s a bit skinny). Anyway, he spent a day in a shelter and a day in a temporary foster home (with four other dogs!) and meanwhile they got him neutered and vaccinated. On the third day of his rescue, we drove up to Montreal for our three-hour interview. We passed with flying colours, so did Big! So we signed the adoption contract, packed up the car and drove home. He’s been a good boy ever since!

So if you want to meet a good dog, come over for a visit sometime. Big doesn’t mean bad
 

What a good boy!!! 

Bad people in k-town!

Yes, we all know there are bad people in k-town. My next door neighbour's house was broken into last Thursday while she was at work. Yikes! I'm scared now! I need a security system a.k.a. a BIG FRIGGIN DOG! So, Erin and I went to the Humane Society Monday to check them out. Nothing really turned our crank. We've also filled out the Adopt-a-Rott application form, so we'll see if we can adopt a rescued Rottie. Stay Tuned!

Round Two: Stella's sitting on one egg

Stella the Canary has gotten over the trama of not having any of her four last eggs hatch. Only one week after I removed them, she has laid another egg and has been incubating it for 2 days. So the hatch date should be around April 30th. Corss your fingers. Stella....you go girl!

RWI at Aces Top Card Tonight

Be there or be square!

It's an April Fools Joke!

The April 1st posting is of course an April Fools Joke! (*grin*)

I'm going to be a dad!

Erin found out yesterday that she's pregnant! I'm going to be a dad! YEAH!!!!!!!

The Yellow Lab Spiteth

Erin called me yesterday at work to let me know that the Yellow Labidichromous female fish spit out her first fry.. YEAH! And today we woke up to 5 of them in the breeding net! I'll try to take a picture tonight.

She's still not eating so she may have more in there! Very cool!

We had a great weekend on Wolfe Island for Easter. Here's some proof: Angus, Mackenzie and Erin climbing all over the monkey bars with Madison the puppy dog keeping a watchful eye! Too cool!  

Eggs for Easter!

These are the four canary eggs that Stella laid about 3 weeks ago. Unfortunately, they are not hatching and it's way past their incubation date. They must be unfertilized. Hank obviously isn't doing his job. Bad boy! And I was soooo looking forward to having a baby in the house HAHA!

The A Strikes Again!

It's official! I'm keeping the straight A streak alive with my recent mark in my 7th masters course at UoP: Information Technology. Yeah for me!

Happy St. Patty's Day

What do a two-foot tall Guiness Hat, a toucan, a lineup and Mar 17th have in common? Easy right: St. Patrick's Day. I hope I can get pictures soon. I didn't have my camera but Jen had one. And boy wait until you see a picture of Jen's GIANT Guiness hat... it was awesome! For those not from Kingston, the Toucan is the best Pub in town and it was filled to the brim yesterday evening for St. Pattrick's day. I had a great time eating burgers, fries and nachos while sampling my favourite alcoholic beverage. I was good though. Only a couple of pints and home early, because I had to work the next day. But home early isn't so bad when you start drinking at the bar before 4:30pm! HAHA! When I get some pictures, I will post them here.

Siblings!

Erin, Julie (a.k.a. CJ( and I went to the opening screening in the Kingston Canadian Film Festival last Thursday. It was an awesome movie called Siblings. I loved this pseudo-dark comedy about a family of four children who "accidentally" kill they're evil parents. Definitely a must see ... it has the kind of twisty plot that I love. Rent it if you can find it!!!

After flying 15 mins, we moved onto snow! Wow! From summer to snowy in such a short time! 

Here's some of the rocky terain over Utah, (I'm guessing Utah...really I have no clue) 

Here's our A320 prior to boarding in Phoenix 

Look at us! Don't we look geekie! I especially like the pen in my shirt pocket! (HAHA) This is me in the middle with my boss Daniel on the right and our new friend Magnus from Sweden on the left. A young Saguaro Cactus behind us; it's got no arms! 

NEWSFLASH!

I got carded at a restaurant when I ordered a Coors Lite here in Phoenix! Did I tell you how much I love Phoenix! haha

Good Morning. Here's the early morning view outside the hotel's 3rd floor balconies. It's a big park with small mountains in the background. 

Here's an orange tree in the hotel courtyard. I wonder if I can eat theses oranges? I'll have to ask. 

On our walk we came across a crew that was transplanting some date palms. What a big job. A crane pulled them up while I small backhow digged and pushed at the base. 

This is the same crew about 1.5 hours later. Where three date palms were early, only the last uprooted one remains! 

Me of UoP! YEAH!!! I made it! 

Another UoP building. 

The view of the hotel courtyard from my window. The outdoor pool is at the far end just out of view. 

This is the side of our Hotel. The date palms all around the city are beautiful. 

Phoenix is Niiiiiiice!

Here's a fuzzy poic from outside the plane a few minutes before landing. There's some funky rock formation there. Nice blue sky too! 

Air Canada is my Friend

We're HERE! Here's a couple of photos from our plane trip just prior to landing in Phoenix. Keep in mind I'm shooting them out the window! Crappy quality! The weather is beautiful here! 22oC today! And people are swimming in the outdfoor pool. How cool is that! (no pun intended!) 

Febfest!

The 1st annual Febfest in Kingston was AWESOME! Erin and I saw the first four games of the 3-or-3 hockey tournament. The NHL players were awesome to see up close! Red Wings alumni like Paul Coffey and Wendel Clark in particular! YEAH! Go Wings Go!

Don Cherry was there of course!

The hockey was lots of fun and the crowd was huge, they estimated it at 30,000 people! The mayor committed to sponsoring this event again next year! Right on Big Harv!

Now Erin set us up to volunteer at the dinner later on in the evening for the Girls and Girls Club and it was so fun and exciting because many of the NHL players came to the dinner. It was great to see them up close, to talk to them and they freely gave autographs as well. I personally talked to Dale Hawerchuck, Doug Gilmour, Wendel Clark, Joe Cirella and Dave Ellett. Erin got autographs and spoke to Joe Niewendyk, Mike Keane and Kirk Muller as well! Erin was the “autograph bunny” actually. She rocks! We also got a free dinner out of the deal and saw part of the auction. Dinner with at Kirk Muller’s house went for $3,900! Wow!

Overall it was a great day that was capped off by Siobhan’s b-day party…lots of fun despite missing the poker game! Next time organizers have to start the game EARLIER!!!!! HAHA!

Straight A still streaking!

I received great news on the weekend that I scored an A in my last Masters course on Statistics and Ethics in e-Education. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s six courses in a row!!! And that also marks the halfway point of my masters! Six courses down and six to go; it’s all downhill from here (*grin*)

Valentines Days! (or how to score!)

It's no secret... I miss hockey. But I still know the meaning of "He shoots... he scores!" and I did just that Monday night for Valentines Day. I took a really long shot! I decided to make a really nice high class dinner for Erin to celebrate Valentines Day. (Those who know me, know that I almost never cook! I was really going out on a limb here!) I pulled out all the stops I could! Table cloth, linen napkins, white candles and customized "love music" (cheezy but always appreciated!)

The meal I prepared was influenced by Erin's suggestion. She loves seafood pasta so I went with her suggested theme: Shrimp Scallop Scampi over fresh linguini. I rounded it out with a homemade green salad with greek dressing and a lovely Honey and Oat whole wheat bun from Pan Chancho. For desert I picked up something else from Pan Chancho: a strawberry and white chocolate profiterole (that's french for cream puff!) It was awesome! I also served Erin white wine with dinner. It puts her in a good mood (haha).

The flowers on the table were courtesy of her. She surprised me earlier that morning with roses delivered to my work. I was so delighted to receive them. They are so beautiful, with multiple coulours: yellow, red, pink, and the kind with red tips and pink body. Very cool! The girls at work were a little jealous as I was the only girl in the office who got flowers delivered to work on Monday! (*laugh*) Erin is truly a keeper! I'm glad we can do things for each other like that on Valentine's Day.

It was a great day with a great girl! I wouldn't have done anything differently. Well, wait... maybe next year we can get tickets to a Detroit Red Wings game for Valentines Day? They might serve some seafood pasta at the concession stand?!? ... I'll have to look into that! (*evil grin*)

Yeah for Tiff and Wayne!

There was a little fun get together at Tiff & Wayne's new house last night. The place is great!!! We had lots of fun chit-chat and X-box carnage too. Everything said at the get together is IN THE VAULT by me. So you won't read any of it here. However, you can talk to Erin or Jen instead. I found out last night that both their vaults are a little "leaky" (HAHAHAHAHAHA! LOL!) (I'm probably going to get in huge trouble for posting this.... but what the heck...it's funny and I've been working out so I can take the beating!!! Look at these abs!)

Pull over: pooping in the forest is not a bad thing!

Eric's Commentary:
I just want to get this straight for my avid readers (*cough*), pulling over while on a trip and pooping by the road is not anything to be ashamed of! Pooping in your pants, however, is a different story. So kudos to everyone out there that has ever answered the call of nature after pulling the car over!!! It's the only logical choice!

Passport Update!

I received an ExpresPost delivery yesterdays that I picked up today. it was my passport. Everything looks fine in it too. It took exactly 21 working days from the day I mailled in my application via ExpressPost from Kingston to receive my completed Passport back. The Fed Gov't targets 20 working days from the day of receipt, so I would say they lived up to their words pretty accurately! Kudos to the Passport people in Ottawa!

I hate my flatmate!

No....wait....I don't hate my flatmate! Ted's my flatmate and he's pretty cool. Ultra-easy to live with.

But my mom found this cool blog called I Hate My Flatmate which is well worth a peek. It's the hilarious story of why one individual hates his flatmate! The comments are hilarious and numerous too!! I added it to my blogroll on the side bar. Thanks Mom! You're the best! Keep 'em coming!

Follow up on Griffin iTalk

K, I figured it out. I guess the 4G iPod Photo doesn't pass power to the pass through microphone correctly. Strange. So Griffin has to go back to the drawing board on the 3G iTalk because the microphone pass through feature will not work with this particular iPod. I learned this by finding this thread on the iPodLounge site. So I returned the iTalk today for a refund. I guess I have to be patient to see a new accessory developed that can record my voice onto the iPod from a lapel mic.

Friday night!

So, with Erin out of the country, I am having a very BORING Friday evening! But I did figure out how to publish my recently played songs from my iPod/iTunes to the web. Check this link out to see my list! That's cool in a geeky sorta way.

Griffin iTalk

I've been experimenting with the Griffin iTalk for the iPod. It's a neat gadget that aloows your iPod to turn into a voice recorder. So far the experiment has mixed results. The bult in microphone condenser works fine, the speakers is a bit crappy but who cares. What I really want to do it to use the microphone pass through feature to place a microphone on my lapel and to record my voice while I talk. Unfortunately, after trying out two iTalk units, I can't get it to work. All I can record is dead air with an attached external microphone. It's as if the iPod and the ITalk can't recognize that it's a microphone plugged in instead of a set of headphones. Darnit! I'm try to get help on the iPod Lounge forum. More to follow on this as it becomes available.

I shook Jean Beliveau's hand!

Jean Beliveau was in Kingston today to sign autograph. This living legend is on a mini-tour to promote the auctioning of his hockey memorabilia. If you're not sure he's a living legend, you only need to hear one statistic to be convinced: he has 10 Stanley Cup rings! Holy smokes! That's only one shy of the record holder which is Henri Richard: he won 11 Stanley Cups!

Jean Beliveau is the consummate professional even today. Gentlemanly, patient and caring; I estimate he signed more that 500 autographs today and he did every single one with a smile. I thanked him for coming to Kingston. I've got his autographed picture on my wall already. Here's a couple of pics that I took while I was in line.

Jean Beliveau signing an autograph on a Jersey. 

Here's a shot of about 10% of the crowd packed into the International Hockey Hall of Fame! Loads of people! One big snaking line! 

The most fun you can have jamming your thumb!

Friday night Andra and her newly arived husband Anwar hosted a rocking good time at Myles Acres. I was pleasantly surprised to see RWI in full force when we walked in. Very cool! This band is a lot of fun and I love it when they play the AC/DC! They played Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and the everpopular TNT! I love it. Erin got up and sang a beautiful duet with Jen from the band. They wowwed the crowd with "Mr. Jones" by the Counting Crows! Too cool. Rhonda, Andra and friends put on a beautiful spread of food too. If I would have known, I would have skipped dinner! HAHA!

One of the most fun activities of the night was the sledding! A brave rag-tag band of sledders was assembled at about 10:30pm to hit the slope. And HIT is the opperative word. The hill was a steep and rock ridden! My first trip down the hill, Julie clipped me from the side and I went flying out of Erin's Super Sledder 2000 (or whatever she so cutely calls it!) My second trip down was a 3-some of me, Tony and Erin and it was brutal. The black sled half collapsed going down the hill and we stopped hard, my kidneys complained and my thumb got jammed! Yeah... PARTY INJURY!

At the end of the night, we drove Jen home and tried to get Erin to sleep as soon as we could. She was leaving the next day at 5am to go on her Caribean vacation! She's gone now. I miss her already ;-(

Dismantling the Iron Horse

About three years ago Ted and I made a bet that we would never ever go to the Ironhorse Saloon. I don’t know why we made that bet maybe it was because I was so anti-country music at the time (*evil grin*). But we kept it, we never set foot in Kingston’s largest and only country bar in the last three years.

Now when I heard it was closing I had a little twinge in my heart. This establishment which I had actively avoided for years (I’ve been in K-town for 18 years and had never been there!), was going to be closing its doors. So, I asked Ted if he’d like to break the bet and go to the Ironhorse on its last night. He was into it baby!

So last night we trucked over there… just to spend a short time there since it’s a school night (haha!) Doors opened at 7:30… we were there by 8:30pm. The place was impressively large and impressively full for the early hour. Half-full! It was amazing. The diversity of people that were there was impressive: people of all ages, all body types, all dressed differently, and all with varying quality of teeth (HAHAHA!) Also, there was a surprisingly high number of people wearing cowboy hats. Who knew?!

Angela popped by for a few minutes to say “hi” and I saw a few SLC students that were in my class last semester.

By 9:15pm the band hit the stage: Ambush. And despite them playing country tunes, they rocked and the mountain of girls dancing on the stage with them didn’t hurt their sound either! By this point the bar is PACKED!!! Jam packed and there’s a line up to get in the door. So fans of the IronHorse were certainly seeing it out with style!!!

So, 10pm rolled around and Ted and I shook hands and packed it in as agreed. We’d been to the IronHorse and as we left we felt kind of sad. I felt sad because we weren’t sure where these people would go in the future to have fun. Fun was definitely being had inside that place … that’s for sure and some people will miss the IronHorse a great deal I bet. Where will they go now? Whiskey Willy’s? Yikes!!!

My iAdventure with my iPod

So, I've been riping music like there's no tomorrow. As of the time of this posting, I have riped about 400 CDs. Holy moly that's lots of CDs! But I'm not done yet! My rough count says I have approximately 200 more CDs to go. Jeez! My CD collection sure has grown over the years!

I bought a 40 Gb IPod Photo and I calculate that I will be able to fit about 833 CDs worth of music on it! So that means I will be able to hold my entire CD collection on this iPod! Sweeeeeeeeeeeet! And the iPod will only be about three quarters full. That's pretty cool! Room to grow!! This is fun!

I'm Sick Dammit!

Jeez. Another cold! Bleck!

NEWSFLASH

I just bought a 40Gb iPod Photo! Yippeee!
(I'd write more but I am busy charging...)

Summer in January!

What do grass skirts, snow pants, horses, beer and chocolate beavers have in common? If you answered Janice's Birthday Party on Wolfe Island, then you are exactly right!!! The guys all showed up dressed up with Hawaiian Shirts (I had to buy mine…but Alex has a beauty already!) and the girls were treated to some grass skirts and lovely fuzzy sea-shell type bras upon their arrival! Man it was hilarious! The party's central activity involved three rounds on a horse drawn hayride. Now, it was freezing cold (had to be -25oC with the wind chill) and even with my long underwear I was friggin' cold! Needless to say I only survived one of the hay rides. Crazy people like Erin went out for two of them. I think the only person who made it out on all three was a guy related to Frosty the Snowman!

The food on the inside was super yummy! Loaded with snack too! I was especially enamoured with the cheezies in the beginning and the nacho flavoured Doritos in the end. Scary ... now I remember why I don't keep any chips and junk food in the house!!!

RWI played a marathon gig! Three sets! They were lots of fun and they played to the crowd as they usually do. Erin got up and sang as song as usual. The crowd loved it! Fernando by Abba! She had to read the words of the paper but it was still coolan accoustic guitar. One neat music thing that went on as well was in between the second and third set, a guy named John just pulled up to the microphone and sat down with he played three tunes: two from The Who and one from Pink Floyd. And he did an amazing job! I was really impressed!

Another fun part of the night was the impromptu Limbo line and then the strip show by Erin and her brother Chris! One of them took their shirt off! I'll let you imagine who it was!!!

What does the chocolate beaver in the opening line mean? Courtesy of Julie, the homemade chocolate cake for Janice was in the shape of a Beaver with a great caption: “World’s Best Beaver!” Too funny!

Pictures will are imminent!

Me and Jen! 

Beer is good! 

How cute!