Posts filed under 'Life'
We had one of our garage door springs blow on Friday so we weren’t able to park the car inside our house. I called OnTrack to come fix it and wanted it fixed relatively quickly, so the came on Saturday and billed me a bunch of money for the mechanism replacement (which was fairly beaten up and needed some “theraputic hammering”). Then, wrought with rusty angst at having lost its true companion of 15 years, the second garage door spring decided it could not go on any longer in this world and drank poison which it had procured somehow from a local apothecary. The same repairman came and declared it dead by ironic means and proceeded to replace said second spring. When will the families of the right and left garage doors realize their folly and the tragic loss of their springy children? Never — they are just doors.
April 25th, 2007
Karen and I (after becoming a Brit) managed to get together and spend some short time with a long lost friend, Dale Wells (yes he’s on facebook) with whom we did improv oh so long ago. Karen said when Dale moved to the T that he would vanish to us living the simple uncomplicated life in Waterloo. We really haven’t seen much of him in the last 5-7 years, so it was wonderful that K and I got to spend at least a couple of hours getting reconnected with such a fun and great guy. Things are going well with him, he’s getting more active in performance again (after having taken a bit of a hiatus) and generally seems pretty happy. K and I vowed that it would be 6 months and NOT 6 years the next time we manage to get together.
April 23rd, 2007
Today I was sworn in as a citizen of the UK. It all started in earnest back in November and 5 months to the day, it was wrapped up (slightly off their time estimate, but still not bad). Karen and I filed into a room in Toronto at the consulate along with about 20 others who were applying for citizenship, I had to stand up and pledge my loyalty to the Queen and country (something my American friends think was a bit crazy, but hey I’m Canadian, so it doesn’t really matter much) and then I was done. Officially, I qualify for “British by Descent” which means that I derived my citizenship from my parents (Mom) and I am not able to pass it on to my children. Next step is to apply for a British passport (and work on my colloquialisms) so travel and work within the EU becomes that much simpler.
April 23rd, 2007
A bunch of us went to see Just for Laughs at CITS tonight. It was pretty funny, although there was some definite politically incorrect humour there (referencing KW and Hitler). Overall, some funny stuff, but inconsistent. I’d like to go see JFL in Montreal some time I think.
April 19th, 2007
Decided to go for a run today — that was sort of a mistake. I was doing fairly well and wanted to go quite a way (apparently 12K, didn’t realize that when I started), but I was doing my usual stupid stuff, jumping off here and there (and not wearing good shoes). Well, I must have injured my foot or something in one of those jumps because I ended up having to walk half of the distance rather than run (not sure I could have anyway), but my the last 2K, I was having a really hard time even walking. So, lesson for myself, set my expectations appropriately and don’t overdo it.
April 15th, 2007
Hope people had a better Easter than this. Ate SO much turkey… ugh, much turkey coma.
April 8th, 2007
Yay! K and I went out on a date tonight — found a good Mexican restaurant (the Mayan Grill) in Cambridge which was nice (we sorely lack Mexican food in Waterloo). Then went to see Blades of Glory which was quite funny — I love the double hotdog scene, it made me keel over laughing. Finally we ended off with a suite in St. Jacobs which was very nice. Overall it was nice to spend some quality time and break the routine. If you haven’t done a date recently, you should, it’s nice.
April 7th, 2007
Today was the day I sat down at got my hair cut. After 9 years of having long hair, I’m fulfilling an obligation (”I’ll get my hair cut when you make me a VP!”) that I made off the cuff about 7 years ago, never thinking I’d have to make good. A large portion of folks gathered downstairs at lunch to watch the cutting happen and encourage the scissor holders (and also support me in my time of need). Laura was very nice and also had her hair cut for charity which made me feel less alone in the ordeal. Polly had cut her hair for charity earlier in the year which was also a wonderful gesture. In the end the highest donation was supposed to actually do the initial cut of my hair, but Robert couldn’t make it, so it fell to Shae. Overall, it was a good cause with the hair going to Angel Hair for Kids, and $2500 being split across several charities. People took some photos of the event (so I could remember the horror) and Howard put together a wonderful video to help me relive the event to the end of my days.
Overall, I feel sad. I liked having long hair and not sure I suit having short hair although I definitely look like “the man”.
April 2nd, 2007
The top shelf in our closet is what I would call layers of clothes sediment (varves for you geologists) deposited over the course of many years. Rarely do we delve into the bottom layers for something to wear, mostly we skim the top layer and replace it fresh as it is used. Today that all changed. Systematically looking at what we had and grouping into useable categories and parting with those items that might borderline fit (if we were still twenty), never really got worn (anyone want to support Pitbull Software) or were slightly outdated (Hypercolor still works after being in the dryer 30 times right?) We ended up with a much cleaner inventory of what we have that is more practical to wear and that notably expanded to take up all our clothes space even though six garbage bags of clothes got taken to goodwill. Something we should do once a year I think.
March 24th, 2007
I love Irish things — Irish dance, Irish music, Irish countryside, Irish cities. Very fun, so hopefully everyone gets to relax and celebrate tonight. Me? I’m off to see the Greek movie 300. 
March 17th, 2007
Bought new track lighting for the living room to replace the horrible brass 80’s standard-builder-install lighting. This kind of stuff always makes me nervous, but it will look good once we get them up.
March 10th, 2007
Yay! It’s K’s birthday today — glad I’m home and not travelling.
March 8th, 2007
One of the places to eat at when you stay near the Grasbrunn office is Charlie’s Pizza. It’s actually really really good — friendly, nice food and fairly inexpensive. Odd thing however was that there was a dog in the restaurant (presumably the owner’s).
March 6th, 2007
Norbert and his family took me on a hike up to a lake in the Alps. Very very scenic and beautiful (I love that kind of thing). It was really quite warm out, which was very nice even though we had trees and snow everywhere. Because Norbert’s daughters were with us, I did my usual goofy stuff to entertain — throwing myself into snowbanks, banging my head on trees and falling over logs.
March 4th, 2007
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