All dolled up

Happy New Year! Here is a picture of Katherine and I getting ready to go... nowhere! We decided to get all dressed up for a night in with our parents (my mom, and Katherine's parents and Grandmother, that is). Well, I hope that you're night is miraculous, and that you haven't broken any resolutions already! 

Back in the saddle

Well, as you can tell by my long absence from my blog, it has been a very busy holiday season! I’ll try my best to fill you in on what’s been going on over the past little while – now that everything is started to get back into the old routine, I will have time to post much more regularly again – woohoo! I just jotted down all the things I wanted to talk about in this post, and I came up with a list of 14, no 15 topics (sorry, none of them are weird websites this time). It looks like this is going to be one long post, so sit back and make yourself comfortable. I just typed that last sentence in MS Word, and it recommended that I change the word “yourself” to “you” – so much for Grammar Checkers.

Okay, so what has happened over the past little while? Remember a few weeks ago, I said that I was now officially bilingual? Well, it appears as though I jumped the gun a wee bit. I looked again at my file, and I still need to improve my official writing mark before I can earn the “bilingual” badge. I’m scheduling a writing test for early in the new year to confirm that I know how to write well enough in French.

Today was my first day of work since December 23rd. It’s been wonderful having so much time off! I can’t remember when the last time I took so much time off. It was well needed and well appreciated – Work wise, November was a busy, busy month, and before the holidays I had never fully recovered from it. Now, I feel like I have.

During my time off, Katherine, Jacob and I kept VERY busy. We had a wonderful Chanukah party my mothers house with her and about 30 of her closest friends. It was a pot-luck type party, and everyone was asked to bring one of their favourite dishes. I brought Katherine. Actually, we stopped off at the Ottawa Bagel Shop and brought three dozen bagels. Believe it or not, they were all gone within an hour. I guess people just can’t get enough bagels. Jacob has been opening his Chanukah presents every night after we light the menorah. Family members all over the globe have sent him presents -- some of the highlights include gelt (money), books, trains, and clothes. Thank you to everyone who has sent gifts. Katherine and I really appreciate it, and so does Jacob. His favourite time of the day lately seems to be opening gifts.

In fact Jacob has been doing a lot of gift opening lately -- what with eight days of Chanukah and one day of Christmas to contend with. For me, Christmas morning is still relatively a new phenomenon. When I was much younger, I had a few pseudo Christmas mornings at my fathers house, but they always seemed wrong, and made me feel sick. What Katherine and I are doing with Jacob feels a lot more comfortable to me in every way. The only reason he might feel sick is because he’s had too much chocolate. Neither of us are denying, hiding, or skewing our own beliefs, we’re simply exposing him to what we both believe in. For Katherine, that means presents on Christmas morning. For me, that means a present every day of Chanukah. For Jacob, it means a whole wack of presents, and exposure to two of the world’s great religions. I’m pretty sure that it’s a win/win/win situation.

During Christmas, Katherine’s “aunt” and “uncle” (Bob and Murrilla) stayed visited from Prince Edward Island. Katherine’s grandmother was very happy to have the company of her nephew and niece – I’m pretty sure that they played cards for the entire five days of the visit, and I’m positive that more alcohol was consumed during the five day visit than is usually consumed all year long. Oh well, I suppose that’s what the holidays are all about.

The day after Bob and Murilla left for home, Katherine’s grandmother walk walking from the bathroom to her chair in the dining room (where she spends most of her time reading), when she lost her balance and fell over. It was a pretty scary time for everyone in the house at the time, but thankfully she seems to be okay. She has a rather large bandage on her arm where she scraped herself on a chair leg, but other than that she’s fine. When she fell, I was entertaining (or trying to, at least) a friend visiting from Toronto. In the time it took me to peer around the corner, Katherine and her mother had already zoomed to grandma’s side to help her up. Thank goodness for those two!

On a brighter note, Katherine and I decided to take a day to ourselves a few days ago – we brought Jacob to daycare, and then headed over to Wakefield to the Edelweiss Ski Resort for some… you guessed it: Tubing! If you’ve never gone tubing before, I highly recommend it – you take a chair lift to the top of a ski hill (one with no turns, that is), and go down the hill on an inner tube. Depending on the hill, you can pick up some pretty good speed. In total it takes about 15 seconds to get to the bottom of the hill (I timed it), and about 15 minutes to get to the top. Those 15 seconds, are definitely worth the 15 minutes, though – and besides the view on the way up was wonderful, and the company was even better.

The whole time we were at Edelweiss, I was feeling guilty about leaving Jacob at the daycare, and Katherine was feeling VERY guilty. We kept reassuring ourselves that it was okay to have a day to ourselves. And besides, we’re paying for the spot in the daycare, Jacob might as well fill it. Right? Right? Well, near the end of the day, when Katherine was in the washroom, she saw a little girl who looked at her and smiled. Katherine thought the girl was someone from brownies until she asked “Where’s Jake-y?” Well, it turns out that the girl was actually someone from Jacob’s daycare centre. Boy did we feel guilty! To ease our guilt, we kept him out of daycare the next day, and we all spent the day together.

That evening we decided to empty Jacob’s piggy banks and roll up all the coins. You would be surprised how much loose change adds up over time. In two piggy banks, we rolled up over $130. That is money going directly into Jacob’s bank account.

Hmm, what else? Today was my first day back a work, did I mention that? First thing this morning, saw my pay clerk in HR, and they gave me my November overtime check. Thank goodness for overtime – I’m finally going to open that ING direct account I’ve been wanting to – and I’ll be able to do it with a nice round number. Yay!

Tonight Jay and Chris (my brother and sister in law) are going to visit, and we will play a game of Trivial Pursuit. It should be fun. We were supposed to have dinner with our friend Gen .. err.. Genevieve, but the timing is horrible given that we need to get Jacob to bed for seven o’clock, and I didn’t finish work until five. Hopefully, she’ll stop by for a quick visit anyways before she heads back to Toronto.

This Saturday – New Years Eve -- we are spending the day with my mom (as always), and will be having dinner at a restaurant near our house. They are having a kids New Years Party with a countdown at 8:00 instead of midnight. Apparently, they’ll also be passing out ‘champagne’. Jacob should love it.

Then, on Sunday, is the traditional New Years Day brunch at Myrna and Morrie’s house. We always look forward to spending time with familiar people, and eating some wonderful food.

Monday is another day off at work, and then everything gets back to normal. Or almost normal, that is. Katherine’s schedule is changing for the better – but more on that later. I really should sign off for now.

Happy new year everyone!

Well, it's Saturday

Today is Saturday. We spent the morning with Jason, Christine, and my mom having breakfast and walking around the mall -- oh what fun. No really, it was. Honest.

At the moment, Jacob is having a nap and so I figured I would check out the blog to see if anyone posted any comments. Nope.

I think this afternoon, we are going to go to Home Depot to see if we can buy a light for my mom. Woo.

I just re-read these past few paragraphs, and realized that they're completely disjointed, and have nothing to do with one another. Sorry.

Congratulations to me

Woohoo. I jut received word that according to [insert my employer name here], I am officially bilingual. What does that mean, you ask? It means that I am allowed to manage people (which I'm already doing), and I get an extra $800 a year....

Don't run with that stick!

Here's a neat picture of Jacob running with a stick. Someone we know who's in a garage punk band called "Birtha Does Moose Jaw" (a hilarious band name) says that he'd like to use this picture for his CD-cover one day.. that would be cool.

Well, that's about all I've got for now. I'm off to watch "Love, Actually" and eat popcorn (and I just found out that there's no diet coke.. darn it)!

Oh well, let the chick flick roll. 

What some people do for air miles...

I've heard of filling up for gas and buying the extra pack of gum to get a few extra air miles, but this is one guy who has way too much time on his hands. Apparently, he decided to put 50 days aside, and invest $7,000 so that he could "earn" one million air miles (worth about $70,000). I'm not sure if he was succesfull in the end, but either way, it's a very strange idea. I saw this a while ago on the Canada.com site, but I can't find it anymore (they've since redesigned their site). So, I will re-print it here, on my blog for you all to read and enjoy -- re-printed without permission of course.

Passenger one in a million
Greg Joyce
The Canadian Press

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Pilot Marc Tacchi is seeing the country the way most Canadians never could -
- or would.

He is soaring with Air Canada, here, there and everywhere, over and over again.

Tacchi is currently a frequent flyer with the airline -- a very, very frequent flyer trying to accumulate one million air mile credits. He aims to do it before the end of November.

A commercial cargo pilot, Tacchi decided two weeks ago to take Air Canada up on its North America Unlimited Pass offer, which costs the customer $3,500 a month and allows unlimited travel to more than 100 destinations in North America.

"I was in Miami on Monday, I think," Tacchi said last week during a brief layover at Vancouver International Airport.

"I thought I'd have a problem with customs but the U.S. and Canada Customs people just laughed and thought it was a great idea."

He has the whole thing figured out, down to the total number of air points he's racking up each day.

He even manages to spend three nights a week sleeping in his own bed in Vancouver and will have the million points in the bag within 50 days.

"I'm flying about 7,500 miles or points a day," he explained. "But I hold super-elite status so it multiplies out at 2.75. I'm doing 19,000 points a day.

"I guarantee I'll do it. I can do it easily."

The strategy is not a vacationer's dream, but's it's effective for his purposes.

The "trick" is to spend the day flying back and forth between Vancouver and Victoria and Vancouver and Nanaimo.

"They are short trips that last about 15 minutes. They garner a minimum 500 miles."

By contrast, a flight to Calgary also garners 500 points but takes almost 90 minutes.

In the evenings, Tacchi broadens his horizons, flying the trans-continentals to Toronto or Montreal.

"And I do red-eyes, which I'm able to upgrade as super-elite most of the time so I get to sleep in business class."

As soon as he arrives, he gets back on the return flight to Vancouver, arriving in time to resume the daily grind of flying to Vancouver Island and back.

Even more astounding is the fact Tacchi takes 36 hours out of the odyssey to do his job. He works for another airline, flying a 767 cargo jet to Europe once a week.

The one million air miles translates into 10 round-trip business class trips to Australia or Asia.

"It's about a $70,000 value, all for a $7,000 investment," said Tacchi.

"I figure a million miles will basically cover my travel for the next three to four years."

© The Calgary Herald 2005

Another obituary

Another celebrity has surprisingly died. I just read that Richard Prior suffered a heart attack this morning, and passed away.

Wax on, wax off, Mr. Prior. Wax on, wax off.

Jake is the cutest kid ever

Hi folks! Katherine here, posting another guest blog.

I don't know if I'm biased or anything, but I think Jake is the cutest kid in the world. That's my kid, right here. I love him and his facial expressions.

Find the band names

Okay, now it's time for some audience participation. Please click on the picture to the right (to see a full size image), and try to find as many band names as you can. Apparently, there are 50 band names hidden in the picture, but I was only able to find three or four. That's where you come in. Post your comments on as many of the different band names as you can find. Have fun! And post as many band names as you can find!!!

Still kickin'

Well, it's about 4:20 in the morning, and I'm at work. I've just rebooted one of my servers, and while I'm waiting for it to come back up, I figured I would post something quickly. The weekend was very nice. Saturday, as I've said, was action packed. Sunday was spent at Jason & Christine's house (my brother and sister in law) with my mom, and some family from Montreal (my aunt, uncle, and cousin). It was fantastic to see everyone -- it's been way too long. I always say this after I spend time with family (and unfortunately, it never happens), but we should do this again sooner rather than later.

Sunday was also Lee's (another brother) birthday. Jacob called him on the phone, and sung a wonderful rendition of Happy Birthday ("and many more"). It was cute.

Well, that's about all I've got for the moment, and it's good timing too, because the fans on my server have just slowed down (that means it's just about ready).

Talk to you soon!

Saturday morning in the By Ward Market

Here is another photo taken last weekend at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. Sorry, it's not of Jacob. It's actually the ceiling of one of the bigger open areas of the museum. I was so impressed when I looked up that I had to take a picture. So I did. It might be a bit hard to tell in the photo because there is no reference, but the entire mural is about 50 feet across (or more), and is dome-shaped. It's Much, much, much more impressive in person.

We just got back from the CHUM market media mall in downtown Ottawa. Katherine was on the radio being interviewed by Steve Madely about some fund-raising she's been involved with lately. The interview was brief, but she was fantastic. While Katherine was in the interview, Jacob and I got to rub shoulders with lots of local celebs including: Bob Chiarelli, Domenic Darcy (the singing policeman), John Council, Mike Duffy, Max Keeping, and a whole slew of others that I just can't think of at the moment. John Council (who has one of the baddest mullets in radio) and Domenic Darcy kept Jacob entertained for quite a while showing him their hidden animals in their hands -- John had an invisible duck that quacked, and Domenic had a dog. Jacob (although being very shy) loved it. A definite highlight of the morning for Jacob were the free chocolate cookies. He must have gobbled up two or three in the first five minutes that we were there -- mean old daddy had to tell him that was enough. Oh well, he didn't seem to mind. Just before we arrived at CHUM, we all went for breakfast at Zak's, and then Jacob got a chocolate menorah from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

All that time that we spent downtown this morning makes me want to live downtown again. I loved being close to everything, and experiencing the hussle and bussle (as much hussle and bussle that downtown Ottawa can have on a Saturday morning, at least). Oh well, you never know where we will wind up buying our first home. Maybe downtown, maybe in the burbs. Stay tuned to find out!

George, George, George of the jungle...

Okay, are you ready for off-beat? This very odd flash animation is right up my alley: weird, bizzare, funny, and with a catchy tune. In order to completely enjoy this, you'll need to have flash on your computer, but who doesn't these days, right? Right. If you don't have flash, then go and get it. Enjoy, and don't say I didn't warn you. Oh wait, I DIDN'T warn you, did I? George, George, George of the jungle... oh wait, I don't want to ruin it for you!

An answer to the question

Google comes to the rescue again! I have found an article that says exactly what is right and what is wrong about single vs. double spaces after a period. Having taken typing classes, I will probably continue to use a double space for the rest of my life. Likewise, having taken design classes, Katherine will probably continue to use a single space for the rest of hers? Can these two conflicting beliefs live in harmony with each other? Of course!

Hi Everybody,

Katherine here again. Jeremy likes to take pictures of me and Jake, but that means he's usually the one behind the camera, and there are few pictures of him.

I took this picture of him over the summer. And I just used the Picasa program to colourize it n' stuff.

Jeremy is a pretty darn good-looking guy, if I do say so myself. There should be more pictures of him.

I love you, Jeremy!

Blog THIS! 

As promissed...

Here's my first poll. Start voting!!

How many spaces go after a period?
	One
	Two
	Who cares, dork!

A guest poster... Katherine

I've decided to give Katherine the reigns of the keyboard for a guest post on my blog. It's very late at night (for us), and we're both tired. We just finished downloading and playing with Picasa, a fantastic FREE program from Google. Anyways, here's Katherine...

Hello all you wonderful readers! This is Katherine doing a guest posting on Jeremy's blog. We've been sitting at the computer for almost an hour, playing with this fabu program from Google called Picasa.

FABU!

The original pic here had Jake with red eye. Why do all kids have red eye in every single picture?

Problem solved. Picasa changed our lives.

And any more conclussions as to what is the proper way of formatting your sentences? Jeremy says you have to put two spaces after each sentence. I say only one. And I know better because I have to learn that sort of stuff at school, and they throw people out of the program for making retarded mistakes like that.

No kidding.

Let me know what you think is the right way to do it. Jeremy will be setting up a poll within the next couple of days, so check back to cast your vote.

Voting? Seems like there's a lot of that going on these days...

Where was I going with this? Oh yes. The picture. This is Jake and I sitting on a camel. And that's all you need to know.

Good night! 

Bono and a twirp

I'm not sure if you know (or care), but U2 was in Ottawa on Friday. I wanted tickets very badly -- Bono is the one person that Katherine would cheat on me for (she's never said so, but I can guess). Anyways, I waited in line for three hours, and when there only a three people in front of me, the tickets sold out. Meanwhile, a friend of Katherine's mother was bragging to us that she has gone to 47 different U2 conerts, and that she was going to this concert as well -- and bringing her son. Katherine secretly wished that her son got sick with a violent but temporary illness, so she could take his place. Alas fate would not have it, and this boy would end up on stage with Katherine's dream date having a song sung to him. In Katherine's words, she's extremely jealous.

PS: If you look closely, you'l notice that Bonno has a magen david (star of David) on his head-band -- I suppose he's yet another star into the whole Kaballah craze started by Madonna.

Saturday morning post

Good morning everyone! This past week, I've become so accustomed to waking up super early, that it was really great to sleep in today! It's about 7:45 and Katherine and Jacob are still sleeping -- they too had a very long week and are enjoying the late wake-up today. Since I'm the only one awake, I figured that I would post a few more
pictures of Jacob. The first picture, Katherine took, and I took the second one. Both of the pictures I chose are very cute (in my opinion), and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do. They were both taken on the same day, about 15 minutes apart from each other. If you look carefully, you will notice that Jacob is wearing the same shirt and hat in both photos. It was a bright summer day, so Katherine and I decided to bring Jacob into the back yard to play. While we were there, we luckily snapped a few photos to capture the memory. I hear Jacob wing up through the baby monitor, so I better get off the computer, and go see him -- have a wonderful weekend everyone! I hope you get to enjoy every minute of it!!! Before I go, here's a funny link for you that is full of people who look like one another. Enjoy!

Daniel son will never be the same

I read today that Pat Morita died. That's pretty much all I have to say about that. It's sad news.

Wax on, wax off, Mr. Mayagi; wax on, wax off.

One more day until the weekend

Only one more day until the weekend is here! I am going to especially enjoy this weekend, as the work-week has been very long -- I don't think there was a day this week that my alarm was set for later than 4:00, and I was usually at work by that time. Well, have a wonderful weekend everyone, and enjoy doing whatever you plan on doing.

Of (only a little) interest to some... a bit of a vent

Now that Katherine's last semester of school is paid for, we may actually have a few dollars to start putting away. So yesterday, I took a few minutes to investigate term deposits. Boy was I disappointed with my bank (caisse) -- If I have less than $5000 to give them, then for a term of one year less a day, they will give me the gift of 0.5% interest. They are a bit more generous if I give them over $5000 at 1.3% interest. Taking into account all the other miscellaneous fees I'm sure they charge, I would be much better off keeping the money under my pillow! I looked at some of the major banks, and they're dismal also. So, what should I do? Keep the money under my pillow?

No.

I was just on the ING Direct website, and their regular savings account has an interest rate of 2.5%. In comparison, my current savings account interest rate is 0.15% -- If I had over $25,000 in the account, that would jump to a whopping 0.9%. What a rip-off.

For those wondering, yes, I did look at PC Bank, and their savings rate is 2.3%. PC Bank, for those of you who are not from Ontario is a bank run by a major grocery chain in Ontario, Loblaws (sounds weird, but it's true). They often have very competitive rates, and offer free groceries in lieu of interest with some accounts (like air miles for your stomach).

Okay, now that I got that off my chest, I am going to get to work.

Jacob in a mask

Here's a funny picture of Jacob taken at Jason and Christine's house this morning. Jacob is trying on a mask that Christine made in grade 7 art class (that was more than a few years ago, for those of you who don't know Christine. We were visiting Jay and Chris for breakfast; Christine made use some wonderful waffles.

When I looked at the files on Jason's camera, I noticed that there were also photos of the dinner that we had at their house a few weeks ago -- The one that I've uploaded is of Jacob's messy, messy face. He thought it would be funny to stick his tongue out for the camera. He was right.

I'm the only one awake

It's 8:00 Sunday morning, and I'm the only one awake in the house. I have the baby monitor on beside me in case Jacob wakes up. Katherine, Jacob and I spent the whole day with my mom yesterday (just like we do nearly every Saturday). We had a good time. We went to the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology -- a perfect place to bring a two-year-old. There is something new and exciting around every corner. Jacob's highlight: The real locomotives you can walk through, and the volunteers who set up shop outside one of them who helped him make a "Mr. Conductor" hat. He loved it.

After I dropped my mom off last night, Katherine and I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the new one with Johnny Depp). It was an okay movie, even though the songs were a bit weak. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but find a character like Willy Wonka a bit creepy since the Michael Jackson case.

Okay, before I got, I thought I would give you all another website to check out. It's not really a website, but a collection of (I'm pretty sure)fictitious iPod advertisements. Some of them (okay all of them) are a bit dorky, but hopefully you will enjoy a few of them.

Getting to know me

Okay, Katherine sent me this and said that I was the least likely to reply. So, to prove here wrong, I'm going to reply, and post my answers here. If you have a few minutes to spare, it would be great if you could post your answers, too! That would be great. Really great.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
5:59. That's what time the alarm is set for. Katherine tried to press snooze, but I didn't let her :)

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Uh, I would probably look funny in either, but if I had to choose, diamonds.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Finding Neverland, I think. It was pretty good.

4. What is your favourite TV show?
The English version of the Office, the American version of The Office, and House. Only, House is on at the same time as The Office, so I usually watch House.

5. What did you have for breakfast?
Large double-double from Tim Horton's and half a bagel.

6. What is your favourite food?
Katherine makes the best Shepherd Pie (also known as Gardener's loaf in some circles)

7. What foods do you dislike?
Anything with meat.

8. What is your favourite CD at the moment?
Does Virgin Radio from iTunes count as a CD? Well, if it does, than that's it!

9. What kind of car do your drive?
A 2003 Kia Magentis (the wanna-be of more luxurious cars)

10. What is you favourite sandwich?
Subway. A 6 inch veggie on Monterey cheddar with everything on it except black olives. Lot's of southwest sauce, and salt a pepper, please.

11. What characteristics do you despise?
Quitting/Giving up.

12. Favourite item of clothing:
My new winter coat from Old Navy. It's a pea-coat.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go?
Egypt. I would love to visit the pyramids!

14. Ever unwrapped a Starburst with your tongue?
The though of doing this has never crossed my mind until now. the next time I have a Starburst, I may give it a go..

15. How many keys on your key chain?
Seven. I don't know what three of them are for.

16. What did you do yesterday?
Worked, played, slept.

17. Last time you cried?
I got my cheeks wet

18. Is your house clean?
If I had a house it would be messy. Unless I could afford a housecleaner -- then it would be spotless!

19. Favourite time of year?
Right now. I love that it's cold enough to wear a sweater, but not so cold that you have to bundle up. I also love the smell of fire's burning in fireplaces all around the neighbourhood.

20.What color is your bathroom?
It's not mine, but it's greenish/blue.

21. Where would you retire to?
My cottage. That I don't yet have.

22. Favourite time of day?
Early, early morning. Between 3-4 O'clock. The sky is always so clear at that time of the day.

23. What did you do on your last birthday?
I can't remember. Is that bad?

24. Favourite sport?
Speed typing.

25. Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
I don't expect anyone to post a comment with their answers, but it would be great if they did!

26. First to send it back?
See my answer to 25.

27. What fabric detergent do you use?
I'm very ashamed to admit this, but I don't do laundry anymore, ever since the terrible incident with the ruined clothing. Katherine does the whole families laundry, now. But I do 90% of the cooking.

28. Coke or Pepsi?
Diet Pepsi, with lots, and lots of ice.

29. Are you a morning person or night owl?
I was a night owl, and now I'm a morning person. Go figure.

30. Do you have any pets?
Nope.

31. Any new & exciting news you'd like to share with your family and friends?
Yes, I have a blog! http://solojer.blogspot.com

32. What book are you reading?
The last book I read was Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. It's been a while since I picked up a new book -- work and family take precedence.


33. Where are your second homes?
Other than where I live, you mean? Perhaps my dream cottage, or, maybe work.

34. Favourite flowers?
I like lilies.

35 Who do you miss most?
All my family and friends. I don't speak to people nearly as often as I wish I could. That's why I started this blog -- as a way of staying in touch.

36. Last place you visited?
Montreal.

37. What are you listening to right now?
The hum of the computers in my office, and someone on the other side of the floor laughing really loudly.

38. What is your next trip or vacation planned??
I'd love to go on one of those free "please buy our time-share" weekends.

39.Favorite thing to do on weekends?
Breakfast with my family.

I love candy

Even though I don't, I could eat candy every day! My favourite candy is probably Swedish berries - a classic. I remember when I was younger, Swedish berries only cost a penny a piece -- they were real penny candies. My friends and I would collect as many pennies and nickels as we couldand go down to the corner store. Then we would take about half an hour counting out as many Swedish berries as we could afford (always taking into account the tax). I remember one time, we bought over 500 Swedish berries. That must have taken us a long time to count! Last night I had one of Jacob's Halloween candies -- it was a gummy bear. They're too squishy for my taste, and not nearly sweet enough. My friends and I were probably the only people who bought the Swedish berries at the corner store, and so they were anything but squishy -- they were actually a bit hard. Oddly (or not so oddly) that's the way I still like them today.

What if I looked like my dog?

Okay, here's another site that I found that is bizarre. You'll definately notice a theme with me -- I like bizarre websites. I'm typing this as Katherine is sewing dozens of peices of paper (don't ask!). Yup, she's sewing, and I'm looking around the internet for weird websites. I think this one classifies as pretty weird. You may have seen this before -- I think I may have seen it before today, too. By the way, in case you are wondering, no, I don't have a dog. Yet.

Camping in the wilderness

Here's a great picture of Jacob running which was taken on the same camping trip that I mentioned in my first post. I don't know a lot about the technicalities of photography (that's Katherine's department), but in my own amateur opinion this picture has all the elements of a great picture. The picture has depth: The trees in the background, the girl on the teeter totter in the semi-background, Jacob (in the foreground of course), and a girl running in extreme foreground. Also, every one of those elements has movement -- except for maybe the trees. I also think it's really cool that the girl running in the extreme foreground is all blurry. And of course, the icing on the cake is the ever-fantastic Jacob (I love the band-aid on his knee). Enjoy! Come back often to see more pictures, more weird links, and more boring musings...

A joke from my boss

My boss sent me the following joke this morning. I think it's pretty
funny, so I though I would share it with everyone:

Prime Minister Paul Martin, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, and Revenue Minister John McCallum are flying on the Executive Airbus to a gathering in British Columbia when Martin turns to Goodale and says, chuckling, "You know, I could throw a $1000 bill out the window right now and make someone very happy." Goodale shrugs and replies, "Well, I could throw ten $100 bills out the window and make ten people happy." Not to be outdone, McCallum says, "Well I could throw a hundred $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people happy." The pilot rolls his eyes and says to his co-pilot, "Such arrogant asses back there. Hell, I could throw all three of them out the window and make millions of people happy."

HAHAHAHAH!!!! Ha.

Natalie Dee

Okay, Katherine wanted me to add a link to Natalie Dee dot com. It's one of her favorite websites and she goes there every day to laugh like a hyena. So go take a look if you want to laugh like a hyena too. She updates the site every day with some very funny stuff, and some weird stuff. Parental discretion advised for the website.
Man, my typing skills are really crappy tonight. Probably because Katherine is sitting right behind me while I write this. Yeah, that's it. Katherine (the current peanut gallery) also says that a double space after a sentence is bad. What do you think?

Computer Dorking

Well, I spent most of today computer dorking. About 20 minutes ago, I began the process of installing Linux Fedora (a version of Redhad) on one of my virtual PC's. I think it's going to take a while, so I will let it process through the night, and take a look in the morning. For anyone interested, I've got five computers in my office at the moment. The computer I use to access the internet (and to do this blog) is a 17 inch iMac G5, and I love it. All of the other PC's in my office are Windows based, and I must say that Mac always seems to be one up on Windows. Anyways, enough computer dorking for one day, I'm going home!!! I'll have to go slow because there's freezing rain out there today.

Here is my profile picture

This is the picture I will use for my profile. I's a weird picture, eh?

Food for thought

I remember the time when I would have one piece of pizza and feel totally full for the rest of the day -- that was when I weighed about 120 pounds.  I also remember the time when Katherine and could go to a corner store, buy a wack of candy and pig out for the next hour -- that was when I didn't weight 120 pounds.    I just got an e-mail from Katherine saying that she had a whole bagel to herself this morning, and she feels gross.  Have we come full circle?  It may seem that way, but I don't think so.  Remember: I still don't weight 120 pounds, even though don't think I'm a big eater (I usually share a bagel for breakfast, have a salad for lunch, a sensible dinner, and a bit of a snack during the evening).  I think, maybe I can just say that I'm getting older, and when you get older, you get fatter.  Period.  What a thing for someone as young as me to say!

Celebrity Stock Exchange

Okay, so I'm not really big into Hollywood stars, and I don't follow their every move, but I have fallen into obsession with a celebrity stock exchange website called Celebdaq. It's hosted by the BBC, and is totally amazing. I think maybe I just like pretending that I'm making money, when I'm really not. So if you have a second, please go to the website, sign up, and then post a comment on my blog with your userid (not your username). Maybe I can create a mini league, and we can all compete again each other in a friendly competition. Woo-hoo!

A cool karaoke website

Here's a neat website for you: www.cheerioke.com

You get to design a person, and then have them sing a song. The cool part is that you can record the song over the phone and it gets recorded
to the site. It's pretty amazing to see the interaction between the phone and the computer -- when you press the record button on the phone, your computer says 'Ready to record' or something like that. Take a look, it's cool.

Welcome to my blog!

This is my first post, so we'll see how often I use this service!!! I hope to use this site as a way of keeping in touch with everyone who I have trouble keeping in touch with (that means pretty much everyone). I'll try to upload as many pictures of Jacob, Katherine and I as I can possible muster. Check back often, because you never know when I'll make a post!!! The picture above is from when we went camping with our friends Janet and Steve this summer. Jacob got dirtier than he's ever been, and loved every minute of it!