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Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Silent Night
The hours are ticking down to the end of "Mad Christmas Shopping Rush 2003" and as the malls will most likely be a zoo and the roads equally insane, I suppose I should head out a little earlier for my trek to work tonight. Having to work evenings Christmas eve and Christmas day has kind of taken the edge off the spirit for us in the HH this year, but them's the breaks, I guess. We'll have a wee bit of time tomorrow morning before Angie heads off to work and then after a quick Christmas dinner Chris and I have to head to work. Dianne's been spending the last couple of days doing some baking and getting the house in order for the festivities.
Sandi has been sporting the chipmunk look since Monday when she had her wisdom teeth pulled. Things seem to be going good so far for her with not too much pain. From everyone here at the Chronicle, Merry Christmas to all and all the best for the New Year! Monday, December 22, 2003
Bursting With Anticipation
Well the Return of the King is out and from what I have heard it is blowing the sox off all who see it. The reviews I have read have been spectacular and the only down point is the fact that after this there is no more. The story is told and once you have seen the last movie where everyone shakes hands and goes home you get an empty sadness inside much like you do at the conclusion of reading the book (which I experince every time I read it). Dianne and I are planning to try to get to the show sometime in eary January. I am trying not to hear any spoilers so I am avoiding people who are discussing the film, a difficult trick as it is all the buzz at work. I think Santa is bringing us the DVD of The Two Towers so we will want to re-watch the first two before seeing the grand finale.
Its the last week before Christmas and we are just on our way out the door to do some last minute gift buying. It always seems like there is just one more thing to get no matter how much stuff you buy. I saw an interesting interview on 60 Minutes last night of the two men who were permitted to interview Saddam Hussien in his holding tank. The American ambassador was a little lacklustre, but the Iraqi guy was great as he described his meeting with Hussein in great detail. You have to remember that this guy was sent to prison by Hussein so I guess he was a little bitter. Putting it mildly, he had some rather rough things to say to his former adversary. An interesting point brought out was that on one wall of the cell were pictures of all the captured and killed commanders under Hussein's command including his two dead sons. On the opposite wall was a portrait of who else?... George W. Bush. Eerie!! Thursday, December 18, 2003
Christmas Newsletter
After sending out several Christmas cards I realized that a lot of people who didn't get cards would not have recieved the 2003 Christmas Chronicle newsletter so I have posted a copy of it to the left. And in true DVD style this version has "bonus features". Clicking on some links takes you to the picture galleries to which the text refers. Sunday, December 14, 2003
Merry Christmas America
I have been busy doing a little shopping for Christmas and getting ready for some musical gigs at church next week, so have been a little retiscent at posting anything.
The big news, of course, is the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tracked down to a little rat hole under a farm house somewhere out in the boonies of Iraq. Quite a change from his palaces and gold plated toilet seats to which he had become accustomed. It's hard to know whether he still has any control over the rebel troops and if his capture will end the attacks against the American troops, but it has certainly made Christmas seem a little brighter for the people of the world, especially one American named George Bush. Now if they could only find that other weasel Osama Bin Laden, remember him? Monday, December 08, 2003
Looks Like A Job For Captain Photoshop
I have been waiting for the fall out to end over the controversial "crashing" of the official Heritage Classic team picture by the cast member of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. I thought it was quite amusing although a few others didn't. Like the organizing comittee. I quite expected to see a slew of mock pictures, either on the web or in print, with the "offending" person Photoshopped out and perhaps someone more "respectable" in his place, say Jean Cretien? Or how about Pete Pocklington, or Mayor Bill "Waffle" Smith. However I havn't seen any and I couldn't even find a decent copy of the original to try it myself to give you an example. It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Well, the Christmas cards are all done and we are about to drop them in the mail box so that is one thing out of the way. And we are just about done with wrapping and mailing of the out of town gifts. This afternoon we are supposed to be picking up a tree and by the looks of it this may be the last year we get an actual real tree. The prices have gone up dramatically in recent years and the place I usually get ours, Save-on Foods, not only has raised their price but have such a terrible selection. Plus the fact that we have to drag it home somehow, and in the process get the trunk full of needles. Then we have to wrestle it into the house and get it to stand at attention properly. Then for the next three weeks we have to cater to it's every whim, feeding it water when required, picking up the endless piles of needles that accumulate on the rug. Then when it's all over we have to manhandle it out the door again where it will sit dejected on the lawn until the truck comes to pick it up. I'm into Christmas spirit as much as the next guy but I'm sick of this. I'm strongly thinking that after Christmas when all the sales are on we will start looking around for a real good artificial tree and have done with it. After all, the kids are not small anymore and for the most part no one is around for Christmas, either working or off somewhere. So it will be much easier and a lot less stressfull, not to mention easier on the wallet, to just go into the storage room and drag out the "fake" tree every year.
And speaking of Christmas spirit, Dianne and I had a treat last night. We went to see the "Singing Christmas Tree" at Central Tabernacle and it was great. We both really enjoyed it. Following that we drove through the Christmas "Brighnights" display in Hawrelak Park and by the time we got home we were both feeling quite "Christmasy" so we started wrapping presents. Aint holidays fun? Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Resistance Is Futile
I just heard yesterday that not only Microsoft Windows (The OS we love to hate, or hate to love?) has more security holes than an Edmonton road in the spring, but Mac OS 10 has a security hole and rock solid Linux Debian has security holes. No word yet on whether patches will be available for all these but I'm sure at least Microsoft will have a weekly swag of them to download.
I've had the Christmas lights up for some time now but seeing as it is now December I guess I should plug them in, if I can remember how to program the timer. The Christmas edition of the Chronicle will be rolling off the presses any day now and I will be spending some time licking envelopes for the cards that I hope to get out by the end of the week. Gives me something to do on a long midnight shift. Monday, December 01, 2003
The Globe and Mail
Well, December is upon us and whether we are ready for it or not, Christmas is just around the corner and with all the rushing around and last minute shopping and high anxiety that entails it is always good to stop for a moment and contemplate the true meaning of the season: The release of Lord Of the Rings Part III! But seriously, this is the time of the year when consumerism switches into high gear and more stress is generated over what to buy than at any other time. It is therefore very unnerving to see this story about the plans of one company that happens to be the parent company of the one I work for that wants to exploit the guilt of parents by targeting their kids to influence them on the purchase of big ticket items. Called "kidfluence", the idea is to run advertising during kids programming for items the parents should be buying, hoping the kids who see the adds will harass the parents into getting the latest SUV, stereo equipment and the like. It's a very twisted concept that these big corporations have no qualms about exploiting. It's bad enough that kids are bombarded with ads for things that they want but it's getting really sick when advertisers have to target people through their children. It makes parenting in the new millennium that much more difficult. Thursday, November 27, 2003
The Aftermath of a Great Thing
After almost a week, the Heritage Classic Hockey event is still the talk of the town. Just glancing through the Edmonton Sun last night I noticed many articles about how this thing has touched lives all around the world. So, it was obviously a good thing to chance, and of course now everybody is trying to figure out how to make it an annual event. Trust someone to try and wreck a good thing! Many people have remaked that it was the cold weather that really made the day magical, in a rather obscure and bizarre way. Probably true. We Edmontonians must have looked a sight to some of the warmer climes as we sat there for nine hours freezing while a bunch a guys played hockey. I happened to drive by Commonwealth stadium this morning where they are still dismantling the rink and various other accoutrements. It has been suprisingly mild all week making most people wish the hockey games were this weekend.
Had my six month checkup with my urologist this morning and everything looks great with not a trace of any suspicious activity down there. It's hard to believe it's been six months since the surgery already. Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Another Game To Waste My Time
In the process of scouring the mountain of flyers we get for Christmas gift ideas I came upon the fact that a new episode in the MYST series has been released. It's called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and is a continuation of the spellbinding game franchise that I have been enamored with for several years. I went to the website and downloaded the demo version which kind of gets you started in the game and whets your appetite a bit. I was amazed. It is now a full fledged 3D interactive game where you create your own character to explore the worlds that are part of the game. You can even modify how the character looks so that you can make it look like yourself or how you would like to look. The interface is pretty easy once you get used to the navigation controls and the graphics are, as usual, amazing. I am very tempted to plunk down the $65 for the game. And I guess they are making an online version in which you can explore with other users and interact with them while doing so. So for anyone into puzzle gaming, this is the one to try. Sunday, November 23, 2003
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
We watched with some nostalgia this afternoon as the Heritage Classic outdoor hockey extravaganza unfolded in the frosty air of Commonwealth Stadium. Even though I am not much of a hockey fan it was still moving to see the likes of Grant Fuhr, Marty McSorley, Yari Kurri and the Great One once again enrobed in the Oiler blue and orange. It was quite a spectacle to see these gentlemen, some pushing 60 I'm sure, to put a great effort into giving the fans of Edmonton and all the hockey nuts across the country a real fine show. There wasn't much hitting as I'm sure those elderly bodies are a bit more brittle now, especially at -20 degrees. Hats are off to the organizers, the players and all those involved in putting on this historic event. But I have to give more credit to the more than 57,000 fans, my daughter included, who showed up to sit in the frigid stands for up to eight hours in sub freezing temperatures. Where else are you going to find people crazy enough to pull a stunt like this one? Only in Canada, eh? Hopefully pictures will be forthcoming in future posts. As for the second game of the day... well Montreal won so it's congrats to them, but it would have been icing on the cake if we had taken that one as well. Oh well, the icing would have been frozen by the end of the game. Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Big Game This Weekend
I was just looking over the schedule of the festivities for this weekend's Heritage Hockey Classic do. The stadium opens at 12:00 noon and the last event is at 8:00 pm. The weather is supposed to be getting cold this weekend, probably -12 and lower, so I'm wondering how that is going to feel sitting in those stands for over 8 hours. The buzz around the office is that most people will only go for the old timers game, the only thing worth watching, which is around 4:00pm and then leave before the game between the Oilers and some kind of team from Montreal or somewhere. But I'll bet there'll be some hard core fans equiped with their liquid heat and lots of cash for the $6.00 hot dogs who will stay to the bitter and probably frozen end (unless they also spring for the $50.00 Heritage Classic commemorative bum warmer). I have to admit that it'll be interesting to see Gretzky in an oiler uniform again. Angela has managed to score some tickets to this thing, so she and her boyfriend Lee will be going. They are quite excited. I think I may watch a bit of it on the big screen from the warm comfort of my recliner.
And speaking of line ups, the line starts here for the Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers extended version which was released yesterday. Again, a flurry of activity from the LOTR fanatics at work who rushed out to get their copies. As much as I am anxious to get my paws on one, I am exercising restraint and waiting until just before Christmas to pick up a copy. That way I won't be tempted to crack it open before it has had a chance to mellow under the tree for a while. As usual, we will probably wait for a quite matinee in January to watch the third installment in the theatre. Monday, November 17, 2003
Making Plans For Next Year
As the hoopla of yesterday's Grey cup festivities winds down, tickets for the 2004 shindig are already on sale here (GREY CUP 2004 - Tickets). Boy if that isn't jumping the gun. And I have been not so subtly remided that kudos go out to those fine folks in "Pile O' Bones" Saskatchewan (that would be Regina to youse Easterers) who put on a tremendous show last week hosting the 2003 Coup Grey soiree. Yes siree bob, they can actually put on a pretty good party in that little hamlet, but I wouldn't go so far as to say their little football club is the King of the CFL. The Eskimos have just been letting every other team win for the last ten years because we are such good sports out here. But don't think we are pushovers when it comes to hockey. Those Habs are in for it this weekend. We are not about to retire the "City of Champion" signs yet. More to come on this... Sunday, November 16, 2003
Esks Rule!
We watched a fairly good football game tonight as Edmonton did it to les Alouettes de Montreal and brought la coup Grey home after such a long time that the "City of Champions" sign on the highway was beginning to looka little faded. It was a fairly close game, I think, but what do I know. Everything I know about sports I learned from reading the back of a Pro Stars box, in fact I didn't even know Edmonton had made it to the big game until two days ago. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the game and look forward to woomping Montreal's butt again next week in the Classic outdoor hockey match that is all the tongue wag in this fair burg. I guess tickets for that extravaganza were snapped up in no time. But we'll probably watch it on the tube if for no other reason than to watch Edmonton's adopted golden boy Wayne Gretzky in an Oiler's uniform again. Meanwhile there's a long week of work in between to get to before we can paaatey again. Friday, November 14, 2003
We were watching the news last night and were horrified by the footage of winter blizzards in Ontario and other places east as we languish in virtual springlike weather here in the favoured west where daytime temperatures have been above zero all week. I took advantage of the legubrious weather to install this year's edition of the Hilton's Christmas Light Display and Extravaganza, which, admittedly, looks exactly like last year's Extravaganza with the addition of three new strings of light. It always seems like the special lighting effect designs you dream about in July never reach fruition in the bone chilling cold of Novemeber, you just want to get em' up have have done. They're only lit for a week, for Pete's sake!
And from the "It Had To Happen Sooner Or Later" dept, a great deal of anguish was forthcoming on the discovery of a huge crack in the windshield of the Camry that spread the entire length of the glass. I think it was a result of temperature variances during a cold snap we had as I don't remember any wayward rocks hitting. Fortunately it is down low close to the dash so its not in line of sight. After crying the blues for a few minutes I resigned myself to the fact that stuff happens and that there was not a thing I could do about it. Monday, November 10, 2003
Celeste & Adam's Wedding Pics
I have just posted some photographs of Celeste and Adam's wedding this last weekend in Saskatoon. For those who didn't get an email invitation you can check them out here. Sunday, November 09, 2003
Puttin' On My Top Hat....
We just returned from another whirlwind trip to Saskatchewan, this time to Saskatoon for the wedding of another niece, Celeste Lynch. We left early yesterday morning in hopes of getting there for the ceremony at 3:00 which we did with time to spare. Then after a couple of hours of visiting with family in the hotel room we headed to the hall for the banquet and dance. In summary, a good time was had by all, lasting till the wee hours, making it difficult to arise this morning to go to the gift opening before heading home.
Now, I have nothing against the choice of hiring DJ's for wedding dances, Lord knows that hiring a live band is so expensive it's out of the question these days, what with all the other expenses involved. But I have to wonder if there is some unwritten code somewhere compelling every DJ, no matter what the occasion, no matter what city, to play the same group of songs. It's almost as if there are DJ "standards" and judging from the crowd's response, they are quite welcome. There are, of course, the requisite "silly" songs like the polkas and the chicken dance and that obnoxious "Macaroonia" thing. But then they play some pretty obscure stuff that seems to be almost in a cult standing of their own. There's the YMCA song by a bunch of "swell" guys, (why is this so popular?) and then that flirty thing from Grease that I don't even know the name of. Then they drag out that "Rasputin" dirge that I swear, I never heard on any top 40. Of course at Christmas time you get Boney M and the "Jingle Bell Rock, but that's to be expected. So I got to wondering what they played before all these popular tunes came out. Did they drag out "Minnie The Moocher", or give "In the Mood" one more spin? But then, I am forgetting, in my day we were treated to "live" bands, some of which were so bad that it didn't matter what they were attempting to play you could never recognize it anyway. If I am ever in charge of arranging the music for a dance (say for instance a wedding in this family) I think I'll throw in some of my favorite music, Big Band Swing, and see what kind of a response I get. Whatever it is there'll be at least one person dancing. Next time I should have some pix from the wedding for anyone interested. Friday, November 07, 2003
I Hate Those Meeces To Pieces!
I thought changing the decrepit and malfunctioning mouse on the 90 meg Pentium machine would be a snap. Even picked up a nice little scroll mouse for five bucks from Superstore! Wait a minute, what's this funny little plug on the end. Oh, it's a PS/2 mouse, silly me. Well I'll just trot down to Compusmart and for another five bucks pick up a PS/2 to 9 pin din serial adapter. That should work. Ah,... dummy, you have to have a PS/2 port to run a PS/2 mouse. So it's back to the old mouse with it's finicky buttons and sticky scroll ball. I'll have to look around the second hand stores for an old serial mouse. In the meantime, it's back to Superstore and Compusmart for refunds. Best $10 I never spent. Thursday, October 30, 2003
We Are Not Alone!
Taking advantage of the recent trend in re-releasing movies of the distant past, Ridley Scott has released Alien: The Director's Cut. Although it is being released in theatres for Halloween, I'll bet this horror schlok classic will do well on the DVD market where extended versions of classic films seem to be de rigour at present. This is truely one of the scariest movies to come out in the last 25 years and I remember being freaked by it when I first saw it. With 11 minutes of added footage and some of the fat trimmed from the pristine print the film apparantly stands up well to the test of time. Critics claim that it is not the best of the numerous sequels made of this franchise but most contend that it set the tone for the onslaught of space/horror flicks that came later. Might have to check it out when it hits the rental shelves. Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Winter Chills
The cold, cruel arms of winter have wrapped themselves around this burg for the second day now and as the temps drop to around -6, the icy roads prove hazardous to drivers. Oh well, I guess it had to happen although I predicted the snow wouldn't stay. Guess I was wrong.
Have been wrestling with the XP box and the evil Microsoft trying to overcome a glitchy problem with Internet Explorer. It just wouldn't start in limited user profiles. A breakthrough tonight, though. As I was scouring the net I came across and adware bulletin and the filenames looked familiar, in fact one was the same as what I was getting on the error message. After a little wrangling, I managed to delete that file from my system and lo and behold everything worked 100%. Once in a while, with patience, you can do it to "The Man". Sunday, October 26, 2003
Sad Sign Of The Times
You know there is something wrong with the system when you have more messages in your Spam trap than you have in your In box. Saturday, October 25, 2003
Weekly Rant
These post are becoming more of a weekly thing now as it seems to be getting more difficult to find time to sit down and write. All week I have been battling computer problems of one sort or another and have little time to just surf. Our mail client, Eudora, was acting up earlier in the week which prompted an attempt to install an upgraded version. I am painfully discovering that "upgrades" are more a thing to fear instead of something to embrace. The upgrade caused more problems than the original glitch and resulted in several "re-installs". I finally got everything working again so the emails should get through but now the program takes forever to load on the 98 box. Who know why? I also tried setting up a couple of user profiles on the XP machine only to discover that Internet Explorer 6 would not start on either of them. Any account set to limited use causes IE to balk whereas an administrator setting is no problem. Again, a mystery I am still trying to solve. Maybe it's time to go to Mozilla.
I see Jean Chretien finally got his wish after all his whining and was able to sit down, albeit briefly, with George Bush at the APEC sleepover where the pajamas looked really cute on Jean. I guess before he leaves the political scene he would like to at least once appear to be in good stead with "big brother" George. Last week David Blaine, supposed magician, ended his 44 day starvation stunt and most of the world asked "Who cares...?" David, I think you should stick to your street magic as starving is a tough act to do especially with all the competition from children in the third world. At least they are not hanging from a glass box in downtown London. Now that is tacky! And speaking of magicians, Roy Horn is still not doing so well and it looks like the famous S&R show is gone for good, although Siegfried is vowing that they will be back. Roy had a quarter of his skull removed to relieve the pressure in his brain. It feels like snow here in Edmonton as the cold winds and grey skies have been bearing down on us for the last few days in a very threatening manner. I took down the trampoline today, a sure sign that winter is on our doorstep. Now I just have to get up enough motivation to get out and install the Christmas lights. Ug... The NPR Top 100
Here's a super little site I came across while doing some research into, of all things, the music of Warner Brothers cartoons. It's the National Public Radio's "The 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century and features segments that background some well know musical milestones including the aforementioned Carl Stalling work for Warner Bros and other such notable stories as the origin of Brubeck's classic "Take Five", the stories behind Gone With the Wind, Great Balls of Fire, In The Mood and a great many others. Lots of enjoyable listening here.
Friday, October 17, 2003
Political History Making
With the weather getting a bit nippier out these days and the middle of October just passing us by I spent the day getting a few things prepped for winter including stowing the patio furniture and cleaning out the garage a bit. I just replaced the small entry door on the garage with the one that used to be on the front of the house. It was going to be trashed anyway so I salvaged it to replace the old garage door that was slowly falling apart.
I just installed five more security updates for Windows XP which are now being released once a month instead of every week. I guess Microsoft thinks that they can save time by giving us five at once instead of one every few days. However, I wonder how vulnerable we will be while we wait for the monthly "fix". Looks like the PC and the Alliance are making political history by going ahead with their merger although they don't want to call it that. I guess the PC term is "creating an new party which will be greater than the sum of it's parts." They're thinking like Microsoft now... better to have one big group of boneheads instead of a bunch of small groups of boneheads. Makes for more efficient incompetence. Actually I shouldn't be so crass. The new party will have their hands full when a new election rolls around with the Liberal power team to go up against. T'will be an interesting spring. Saturday, October 11, 2003
It's A Jungle
The posts have been pretty dry on the old site for the past week or so and for that I apologize. Working midnights and not much happening contributes to a certain famine of ideas. Nonetheless, I have a few observations to humbly offer.
Not that it is real news to anyone, but the Microsoft operating system is buggy and full of holes. Yes, we all new that but now Microsoft is actually coming out and admitting it. They are saying the piecemeal detect and patch method of security control is a feeble attempt if anything to bolster up the OS. Now they are talking about, if I understan this right, a free system upgrade for XP and 2000 users some time next year. I have my doubts that it will be any more secure than the existing version, but if it's free I'll take it. Well, just for the fun of it I have added a new photo album over on the left which highlights the so called "pets" that have managed to weasel their way into our household. View at your own risk. The Liberal caucus is running out of steam in Ottawa as Cretien's leadership comes to a close. The caucus meeting ended a half hour early the other day with MPs saying "There just wasn't anything more to talk about." Sounds like a typical Friday afternoon on the Hill. I guess we have to wait for the Paul Martin Show to begin before any "real" business is done now. And another murder in Edmonton this week, just blocks from our place. We are thinking of renaming Millwoods to East L.A. Tomorrow we are celebrating Thanksgiving with a big turkey dinner and a few people to share it with. Dianne has been making pies all day today for dessert and the odour has been wafting into the bedroom making it tough to sleep. Can't wait... Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Aaanold Wins!
The "Terminator" is now the "Governator". And with the mess that California is supposed to be in it will be interesting to see how Arnie handles it or whether the people will be "terminating" him in another 14 months.
With one big huge gust of wind yesterday, most of those gorgeous colored leaves are off the trees and all over my lawn, where they don't look quite so gorgeous. It doesn't take long for the seasons to change around here and before you know it we will be pushing snow off the driveway instead of grass clippings. Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend and the big challenge is to be able to round up all the kids at the same time for the big feast. We may have to have multiple seatings to get everyone fed when they have the time. We finally managed to have a go at the crabs last week and although they were very tasty, they sure were a lot of work. I find it hard to understand how maritime people have the patience to crack those little critters open for such a tiny morsel of meat. I guess I'm a true prairie guy where a big slab of beef on my plate is faster and easier. No wonder seafood is such a delicacy, you almost have to be a brain surgeon to eat it. Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Help Wanted
The Mirage Hotel Casino in Las Vegas is looking at huge losses in revenue after the tragic mauling of Roy Horn, half of the illusion's team of Siegfried & Roy, by one of the shows famed white tigers. Roy still remains in critical condition in a Las Vegas hospital and the show has been shut down indefinitely. The Mirage hotel management is looking for a replacement act to take over but is fearful that it will lose upwards of $40 million a year in revenue from the world famous act which has played to sold out audiences since 1990. Our thoughts and support go out to Mr. Horn for a speedy recovery. In the meantime, a replacement act has to be found and I would like to suggest that maybe they should hire our own Jean cretin who is going to be looking for a new job in a few months anyway and comes highly qualified as an illusion's...He has been making our tax dollars disappear for years.
In the "American Politics is a Joke" department, today is the day we get to see which clown will be elected as Californians new governor. I have no idea how this recall thing is suppose to work, but it has caught the fancy of the entire world. Everyone is wondering if ARIN "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger will get elected and what kind of governor he will make. The jokes about him abound, no need for me to witisize here, but it makes me reflect on how many show biz personalities have made it to public office in that wacky country to the south. First it was "Ronny" Reagan, the old Hollywood actor, followed by "Dirty Harry" Clint Eastwood as mayor of Carmel. Other notables were Sonny Bono and WWF wrestling star Jesse Ventura. So why couldn't we have some Canadian stars for top bananas in our country? How about Gordon Lightfoot as Mayor of Toronto or Premier of Nova Scotia Stompin' Tom Connors. We already have Tommy Banks as senator and Adrienne Clarkson as Governor General. Could you imagine Peter Mansbridge as Prime Minister? Red Green and Tom Green would be in the cabinet as minister of finance and defense respectively, and Rita McNeil could hold the portfolio for health and fitness. Well, the possibilities are endless so let's just leave it there. Whereas we joke about having this kind of government in Canada, in the States it's becoming a reality. What's next William Shatner for President? Better beam me up, Scotty. Sunday, October 05, 2003
Fall Colors
We took advantage of the fantastic weather this weekend to take a jaunt down to the river valley on our bikes. We had been looking forward to this all week and we were not disappointed. I wanted to try and get some shots of the trees in their fall colors and although the leaves were already starting to fall, the scenery was breathtaking. I took lots of shots, one of which is included here:
Today we capped off a great weekend by taking in a Dixieland jazz concert featuring our Newfie drummer friend, Rocky. It was great as usual. Now I go onto a midnight shift for seven nights and I feel like a miner about to drop down into the bowels of the earth not to come up for a week. During the weekend I gave our front lawn it's first and much needed mow since it was installed. That should probably be it for the season and will not need doing till the spring. Monday, September 29, 2003
Autumn Leaves
So the Conservative and Alliance party have put on hold their discussions on their plans to talk about the possibility of merging the two parties in order to form stiff opposition to the Liberals in the upcoming election. I guess they can't come up with a plan on how to choose a leader for the new party as each present leader does not want to "give away" their party. So the Paul Martin machine will probably rumble right over them unless they can get their act together, which in Canadian political terms is pretty much an impossibility.
The leaves are all starting to turn now and I want to try and get down to the river valley one of these days and take some fall photographs of the colors before the leaves all fall off. It's been getting colder lately and we've had a bit of frost but I'm holding out for a decent Indian summer. Nonetheless, winter is on it's way and I guess we should start getting prepared for that. Saturday, September 20, 2003
Isabelle Blows In! 
Here is a rather cool but ominous picture of hurricane Isabelle off the coast of somewhere as it heads towards the eastern states last week. My first question was "Why is the ship still going forward?" Watching the news we saw quite the storm but I'll bet there was someone somewhere waxing the surf board with visions of "narly" waves floating through their minds. Our weather has vastly improved and is more like the seasonal norm with sunny skies and milder temps, but still not warm enough to eat out on the patio. Well, due to a lack of participation the other night, we had to postpone our crab feast and make the little critters climb back, grumbling, into the freezer. I guess we better hurry up and eat them before they get freezer burnt. This weekend Dianne is making a turkey dinner for no particular reason. Her folks are here for a visit so it'll be nice to have something special. I am in the process of breaking one of the cardinal rules of blogging by jumping around from topic to topic. I guess I am suppose to focus on one thing and wax eloquently on that. That, however, is not what life is like. There's always more than one thing going on. As well, I would hope my readers would appreciate that I do not drone on and on about one meaningless item but get right to the meat of the matter on several issues that are on my mind. Kind of like a plate of hors d'oeuvres instead of a whole roast. That being said, I shall now jump guiltlessly to another topic and say that we are really enjoying the new windows, especially Dianne who can now see out to the back yard from the kitchen as the new window is about six inches lower than the old one. I am doing some remodelling around the basement windows because the new windows fit in a little differently and the old window wells had to be demolished. So I have drywalled new wells and am attempting to tape and plaster them, not one of my more accomplished skills. At least we can hang some nice curtains over them if I do a lousy job. As I have always said, the mark of a good carpenter is not how well he builds something but how well he can cover up his mistakes. Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Winter Already??!
The temperature has been hovering just above freezing for the last couple of days and it just looks dreadfully bleak out there. Thank goodness we got the windows done last week. I pity the poor souls who are getting theirs done today, could be mighty chilly in the house. With the cold weather I have been a little hesitant to water the lawn, although it doesn't look too bad, just a couple of spots that have turned a little brown. I don't want to freeze it just yet, though.
Tonight we are boiling some crabs that Chris brought back from his trip to Kitimat in August. Him and his friend got to go out on the boat and lay the traps and were able to bring us back some to try. Chris is coming over to help us devour them. Mmmmmm.... Friday, September 12, 2003
New Title Funtion Arrives
I have just discovered this nifty title function that Blogger has convenently provided so that I can title my posts with witty headlines. They have also incorporated a spellchecker (finally) so that there should no longer be any spleling misteaks. Cool!
The new windows and doors are finally in after three days work, for which I had to stay up for and then work all night, so sleep has been a luxury this week. The windows look great and we expect great things out of them not the least of which is the end of puddles of water from condensation forming on the glass. We have been assured that they will also make the house a lot cozier warm in the winter and cooler in the summer. A feature we got which we didn't have before is openers on the living room window. This should allow for nice cross ventilation through the living room which will be nice on those hot summer days. We had the living room and kitchen windows cut down a few inches each to afford a better view and what a difference it makes. Now we have to start looking at new drapes, blinds, etc............
Nice rainy day today which ordinarily would not be acceptable but on this occasion I didn't mind as I was asleep for all of it and I didn't have to worry about watering the lawn. Wednesday, September 10, 2003
For the first time in weeks we had a grey day with a light rain all day, which actually wasn't a bad thing as it eliminated the need to run the sprinkler on the new lawn. Most of the upstairs windows have been replaced and the kitchen and living room will be done tomorrow as well as the three basement windows, the doors and the trim. I was surprised this morning when the doorbell rang and one guy was standing there. I was expecting a large crew. Nonetheless, I had to stay up all day after working all night and only got to bed about 7:30 tonight. It'll be much the same tomorrow as the fellow will need a hand hauling in the large living room window so I'll have to put the coffee on early. The new windows look great and we are excited about the increased efficiency they will provide. We went out tonight and picked up hardware for the new front door. It's going to look quite posh.
So I guess the RIAA is going ahead with its law suits against those dastardly file sharers and it will be interesting to see how that plays out. They have implemented an amnesty program for people with guilty consciences to fess up, delete all their ill gotten files in front of a notary public and then mail in an affidavit complete with photo ID, everything short of handing over your first born. Don't hold your breath on that one, RIAA. Also in the news today was the voluntary surrender to the FBI of self proclaimed hacker/crusader Adrian Lamo who is wanted for breaking into the computer systems of some fairly large organizations to, as he put it, "expose their vunerabilities". Sorry Adrian, I don't care how well intentioned and public service minded you are, trespassing is still trespassing especially when you break into a system uninvited. This guy is turning into somewhat of a folk hero along the likes of Kevin Mitnik and others and it always amuses me how these rougues are put on a pedestal just because they "did it to the man". I like to see big business put in it's place as much as the next guy, but you have to be a bit more legit than this. Don't be surprised if they throw the book at you Adrian. Just my opinion. Sunday, September 07, 2003
I have finally gotten around to building a page of pictures of the yard renovations which you can access by clicking here or going to the link at the left called September 2003 under the Picture Gallery heading. There you will see some shots of the yard along with a few pictures of interest. We are very pleased with how the yard turned out, much the way we had imagined it. We are now busily watering the new grass in hopes that the sod will take and it won't burn as we have had a few rather hot days recently. We now await the arrival of the crew to replace the windows and are expecting them this Tuesday. I am about to start a midnight shift tonight, so this should prove to be interesting. I'm wondering if I will get any sleep at all this week. Stay tuned for updates on this next project.
 Thursday, September 04, 2003
This is just a quick post to say that the front yard is this close to being finished. The guys were here bright and early this morning after spending yesterday elsewhere and by 11:30 they had just about completed everything before running out of sod. They will be back this afternoon with more sod and a few more rocks for under the tree. At that point I will take some "after" pictures and post them on this very site. But for now I have to go scrounge up some supper for work tonight. Tuesday, September 02, 2003
Things are going pretty well on the yard work. Here are some shots of the yard before they started and at the present time:
 
 
We had a chance to visit Fort Edmonton Park on Sunday, a place we have not frequented in the last ten years. Not much has changed but it was still neat to go through and check it out. Again, it was a case of seeing the tourist attractions of your own city because someone is visiting from out of town. We had an ex-Edmontonian visiting from Vancouver and she wanted to do the touristy thing. The girls took her to West Edmonmton Mall while I was at work, thank goodness.
I am about to go outside and take a few photos of the work in progress on the front yard so expect to see a couple of pictures in the next day or so. The job should be finished tomorrow so there should be a little show-and-tell with before and after pictures. I am hoping it's been worth the wait. The kiddlings are all back to school today so there is a relieved calm over the land. We are now back up to three full time students here as Sandi starts at the U of A today. Speaking of arachnophobia (sp?), anyone with the aformentioned affliction may want to steer clear of Nikki's room if you plan to visit as she has added to the menagerial population with the aquisition of a full fledged tarantula spider. It's so cool and if I wasn't having to be so parentally stern about her getting this thing without permission, I would be pretty excited too. I will get some pictures of it, probably sitting on my keyboard with some equally cute comment about computer bugs or something. Saturday, August 30, 2003
Another gorgeous day in Edmonton as we celebrate the Labour Day weekend. I'm not sure how you would celebrate "Labour" day other than by " labouring" but as most people seem to take the weekend off, except for us poor shiftworking slackers, it almost seems a contradiction in terms. Nonetheless, the long long weekend gives the gas companies an excuse (as if they needed one) for jacking up the gas price for the occassion. Here in Edmonchuk we are enjoying (ha, ha, a note of sarcasm there) our fuel at 79.5 cents a litre. And of course once the weekend is over the price will probably stay the same for a few weeks with perhaps 2 or 2.5 cent sympathy drop to make it look like they are being fair, only to raise it another 10 cents for the next long weekend. I guess if I want to rant about gas prices I should get in line, but it seems that as much as it irks us and as much as we gripe about the high gouging for gas, none of us, myself included, will do much about it. We still drive as much and a lot of us in larger gas guzzeling vehicles. Unfortunately, our lives dictate the same amount of driving regardless of the gas price and raising it does not magically bring the office closer to our homes, unfortunately.
Another thing I would like to vent about is our old friend Microsoft. The XP box has been giving me the Blue Screen OF Death quite frequently lately and for no good reason. I will walk past the office one minute and see the screensaver merrily screensaving away and the next time I go by I've got a computer at death's door. What gives? Is a screensaver that demanding on the resources or am I just suffering from the usual hodge podged, thrown together, patch it every five minutes operating system we have come to know and hate called Windows. I think the latter is true. It's a good thing the power grid doesn't run off Windows. Oh, wait a minute, maybe it does.... Hopefully my next post will be a bit more positive. Wednesday, August 27, 2003
It's late August and in true Edmonton fashion there is a chill in the air and the evenings are already getting shorter. I guess I should consider myself extremely fortunate that we had one of the nicest summers here in years during my time off. We have continued our biking excursions whenever possible and last weekend we were able to make it all the way into the river valley which had been somewhat of a psychological barrier for me. I had envisioned a long, greulling ride to make it that far and wondered if it would be possible. It turned out not to be hard at all, taking only around two hours round trip, approximately 23 km. We did not do too much exploring while we were there as it was getting late but we are planning to take some lengthier trips in the future to explore the miles and miles of trails in an otherwise unknown world hidden from the well know streets of the city. We picked up a map of the bike trails, put out by the city, and were amazed at the extent of their labrynthian expanse. Should provide hours of fun as long as the weather lasts.
The landscaper finally showed up yesterday and started on the yard. He figures it will only take three days to complete the job, but I have a feeling he will be here a bit longer. Nonetheless, the job is getting done and I don't have to do any of the lifting, although I am itching to get out there, grab a shovel and give them a hand. Good thing I am working days all this week. Yesterday I went for my first post surgery check up to determine how things are going and am pleased to report that all is well. The PSA count is at 0, meaning there is no trace of cancer cells anywhere. My next check up is in three months. Friday, August 22, 2003
Found a sneak peek of the Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King trailer here and it looks pretty good although the trailer is in a pretty small format and the bit rate is low making it a little shaky. The best way to view it is with Quicktime at twice screen size. The official trailer is not scheduled to come out until mid September and these downloads are a bit scarce and sketchy so this one might not be valid by the time you try it. Still, it makes waiting for the movie more exciting when you can get a snippet of the film and it looks great.
We are still waiting on the landscaper to come and start our yard. He was supposed to have been here at the beginning of the week but so far has been a no show. I only hope we don't see snow flying before it gets done. Another virus is making the rounds and this one is creating a lot of havoc. Sobig-F is a variant on a virus that was out a few months ago. I have heard reports that this or else the Blaster or both have been responsible for knocking out several big corporate computer systems including a railroad in the states and the Air Canada ticket desks. Better make sure that your virus definitions are up to date and that you download two more critical updates from Microsoft if you are running XP. Wednesday, August 20, 2003
So, today we trudge off to the blood donor clinic to do our civic duty and I find out that I can no longer donate blood because I have had cancer. It actually made me sad. The ironic thing is that for the last four to six years that I supposedly had the cancer, of course unbeknownst to me or the blood service, I donated several times. Now that it is, for all intents and purposes, gone, they tell me I can no longer give.
If you are ever looking for a good movie to rent on a Saturday night, pick up Billy Crystal's "Forget Paris". We have been revisiting this gem lately and getting quite a chuckle out of it. Hilarious scenes include one that involves Debra Winger with a pigeon and William Hickey's obsession with the Toyota jingle "You asked for it, you got it. Toyota." This film has now made it onto my 50 all time favourite movies. 
I found this neat little screen saver in, of all places, the XP OS itself. It's called My Picture Slideshow (don't you just love the way Microsoft insists on adding that cutesy possesivness to everything it names in Windows; My Computer, My Pictures, My Illegally Downloaded Song Files, My Self Destructive Operating System) and it actually displays pictures that you can select on your hard drive with neat little zooms, wipes and special transitions. So I have a few of my more "artsy fartsy" digital shots zooming around the screen when the computer is not in use. I guess we'll leave it like that until we get bored of it or the new Lord Of The Rings trailer comes out, whichever comes first. Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I have been keeping an ear to the ground in regards to this whole RIAA file sharing sabre rattling. I find it interesting that a group that you would think would be trying to smoothe its relationship with the buying public who will ultimately buy their product is in fact alienating that said public by going after them with subpeanas for file sharing. I was just looking on the official RIAA website where it states that offenders face fines of $250,000 and up to five years in prison. If you broke into A&B sound and made off with their entire stock of CDs you would probably get a lighter sentence. What is interesting and bears watching is the fact that in Canada the "fair use" clause on the Canadian copyright law says that copying (or sharing) for personal use is legal. Maybe Canada and a few other countries with similar laws will become the haven for illicit file sharers hoping to evade persecution from the RIAA much like the draft dodgers of the '70's. We Canadians are good for something after all. Or perhaps everyone will do what I used to do: go to the public library and borrow CDs from there to copy. Can't be much less illegal, but you don't see the American Librarian Association raising a stink.
I hate when you get a cold and after the worst is over you are left for days with your nasal passages filled with something that has the consistency of hot tar that just will not move out of there no matter what direction you try to blow it. Monday, August 18, 2003
Today we finally got the remainder of our new bedroom furniture. Dianne now has her night table, which just barely fit in place and there is a big new mirror on Dianne's dresser. Needless to say, Dianne is tickled pink at finally having a place to stash her "stuff" and yet another mirror to preen in front of. I will endeavor to get photos posted for those interested in the "look".
So they finally found out what was the probable cause of "Blackout '03", as they have christened it and wouldn't you know it, it all boils down to an alarm system on a computer not working properly. Unfortunately the whole problem cascaded in less time than it takes to take a gasp so it must have been a sickening feeling to sit there and watch the dominos crumble. No doubt there will be endless debate and investigation and finger pointing for some weeks to come. Toronto gingerly went back to work this morning to no ill effect and the government, in true bureaucratic fashion, ordered 50,000 workers to stay at home on our tab. How does that conserve power? Most of them will be turning on their AC's as they watch TV and surf the net on a free day off. Saturday, August 16, 2003
After two glorious months in the summer sun it was finally time to return to the proverbial grindstone and head back to work. And today was that day. The thing that is most strange about all this is that even after two months away, it did not feel like I had ever left. Everything is as it was, the routine is the same and apart from the 60 e-mail messages waiting for me on the server, it could have just been a long weekend since I was there last. So, now I'll settle back into the routine of the rotating shift schedule and dream of the day when once again I can lounge in the back yard for weeks at a time with not a care in the world.
Boy, does 6:45 in the morning come early. I'd forgotten about that. And when was the last time I wore long pants? And socks!? Oh, well, I guess I can take solace in the fact that it is nearly the end of August and before we know it the snowflakes will be flying and the wind will be howling and the summer will be just a distant memory. And I still have my vacation time to take. I wonder how much Cuba is these days...... Friday, August 15, 2003
We watched, just for a little while, mind you, some of the media coverage of the blackout of the Eastern seaboard last night on CNN. What tedious dribble. OK, it's dark. What more can you say? It was painful watching Aaron Brown struggling for some insightful anecdotes to liven up this dreary coverage. Nonetheless, I'm sure much of the power is now back on and we can expect a sudden rise in the population sometime next May. I heard many a cruel comment about how shoddy the power grid system is in what is otherwise a technically modern nation. One comment was that we were a superpower with the electrical wiring of a third world country. I couldn't help conjuring up the image of the scene in "Airplane" where, as they are about to land the crippled plane, all the runway and guidance lights suddenly go out. Cut to "Johnny" with an extension cord in his hand and a mischevious look on his face saying "Just kidding!" as he plugs the cord back in.
After a couple of days of feeling under the weather I am pretty much back on my feet and able to function normally although I am still sniffling and coughing. I head back to work tomorrow so I am glad that I am feeling better. Yep, it's back to the ol' routine again, no more lollygaggling around the house. I will definately miss having my days of leisure stretched out before me. Now, I will be looking forward to my days off like the rest of the working stiffs.
There's been a lot of panic over this new Blaster worm virus and I suppose it is justified as this one sounds quite malicious. It just pains me to think that there are these thousands of people out there with nothing better to do than to come up with this virus garbage and spread it around as if it were some grand game of challenge. What kind of mentality purposefully works on somthing that will knowingly do harm to others and has no concscience about it. I guess this element of society has been with us for centuries, that's why we have locks on our doors and prisons full of criminals. Well, books have been written about this very thing so my insight into it is pretty feeble, but it still irks me that we have to put up with this kind of nonesense. Finally, after having paid off our mortgage over a year ago, we got our discharge papers from the mortgage company, so this afternoon I'm toddling off to the land titles office to register the title. Maybe now we can have our mortgage burning party. Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Well wouldn't you know it. Three days before I have to go back to work and I have been laid low with a stupid head cold. I am spending the day in bed, today, taking lots of garlic and vitamin C in hopes that I can shake this off by Saturday the day I head back to work. The last thing I need to be doing after 2 months off is to be calling in sick on the first day back.
The landscaper is supposed to be coming on Monday to start on our front yard. We can hardley wait. However, I may have to try and switch shifts on Tuesday in order to be home during the day. Still no word yet on when the window guys are coming, although it would be best if they could hold off a week or two to give the landscapers a chance to finish. Well, back to bed. Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Today I'd like to vent a little about something that has irked me for some time. I love coffee, and in the past few months, for one reason or another, I have been cutting back to the point where I gave it up entirely in the interest of being healthier and to better fight the cancer. Now, post surgery, I have been treating myself, more than Dianne thinks I should, to the occasional cup. Recently, on a very hot day in the city, we decided to go to Starbucks for iced cappucinos. I have tried the Tim Horton ones and found them a tad too artificial and terribly over sweet. Starbucks, like a few other coffee vendors, uses real coffee. But the thing that irked me was that most of it was ice. Duh! It's called and "iced" cappucino, dummy. But there was probably no more than half an ounce of actual, real coffee, and for this I had to pay $3.60 or therabouts. For a buck and a half I can get a tall coffee in a decent sized cup and have way more satisfaction. I may have to go back to Tim Hortons and suffer through their saccarined version. At least it's not as expensive and when I last checked, it was still a Canadian company to boot. Or better yet, I'll just save the coffee I make at home, throw it in the fridge for a couple of hours, throw in a glob of ice cream and then sit back and enjoy that refreshing treat on my own patio. Once a doityourselfer, always a doityourselfer. Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend; we certainly did here and the weather continued to cooperate and gave us some terrific sunny days. The plans with Sandi fell through, she decided at the last minute not to come home and so consequently we did not have to make a trip to Red Deer on Friday night to pick her up. It also meant we didn't have to run her back to Red Deer on Sunday morning, but we still made a trip south anyway as Dianne and I headed down to Stettler for a trip on the Alberta Prairie Railway. For a full pictorial chronicle of the day click here or go to the link under the Adventure Chronicles to the left. Then on Monday, after scraping all the bugs of the Camry, we headed down to Pigeon lake to visit some friends who have a summer getaway there. After a quick trip around the lake in the boat, we headed to shore for a yummy barbecue supper. So, today I was back scraping bugs off the Camry again.
We are quite shocked to hear of all the forest fires in BC and I guess it means we won't be taking any road trips into the mountains any time soon. Our hearts go out to all the people who have been evacuated from their homes. Many of them will probably not have a home to return to. We just heard today that we are next on the list for the landscaper so we should be getting our front yard done soon, most likely the week I go back to work, leaving me with the problem of having to be in two places at once. It's ironic how I have been idling around this place all summer with no one calling and the minute I go back to work everything starts happenning. With my luck the window guys will probably show up the same week. But, no matter what, it will be great to finally get these two projects done as the yard looks like central Bahgdad at the moment and we certainly don't want to go through another winter with these shoddy windows. Thursday, July 31, 2003
I've been getting kind of lax again lately on posting to this site but then again, when you ain't doin much of anything, there ain't much to report. The weather continues to be glorius, which can only lead to one thing and that is sitting around enjoying it. I know that when I'm back at work in a couple of weeks I am going to so miss this lifestyle. However, we have not been totally without activity. I am trying to get out on the bike at least once a day and to that end, I have pampered my end and have bought a new seat for the bike which is more like a couch than a bike seat. However it is sooo comfortable and so much better than the little log that was on there. I also bought a speedometer/odometer to log the mileage I do, for whatever reason. I thought it might motivate me more to set some goals. I also got a helmet which Dianne thinks looks pretty stylish. What do you think?
We will be on the road again this weekend as we have to drive down to Red Deer to pick Sandi up as she is coming home for the weekend to work a shift at Superstore in order to stay on the roster there. Unfortunately, she has to be back at Eagle's Nest by 2:00 pm on Sunday so we will have to have her back in Red Deer to catch her ride by 8:00 am Sunday morning. We are thinking that as we are down there we might just carry on to Stettler and take in the Alberta Prairie Railway steam train excursion which leaves Stettler at 11:00. It would make a great day trip and it would make getting up at 5:00am a little more worthwhile. Things are still up in the air as we may have some prior committments in town that day Monday, July 28, 2003
I've been in a bit of withdrawal for a couple of days after finishing Lord Of The Rings. Nothing in our library seems worthy of reading afterwards. To console myself I downloaded a great LOTR desktop wallpaper with a picture of Aragorn in full battle dress. While at the LOTR web site I noticed that once again the extended version of The Two Towers will be out in November with 40 minutes of unseen footage. I think these DVD releases are great, giving the directors of these movie the oportunity to release a version of their films not hog tied by the restrictions of the paranoid distributors and studios. And of course it benefits us too. Can't wait to spend 124 minutes per movie to watch the trilogy when everything is finally realeased.
And speaking of show biz icons, it was sad to hear of the passing of one of hollywood's great, Bob Hope, who succumbed to pneumonia yesterday just months after turing 100. Seems like not too many of the old guard left. Thursday, July 24, 2003
Today we awoke to a rather gray day after having wonderful, hot, sunny days for the last couple of weeks. The low, dark clouds look threatening and the rain drops keep appearing sporadically. It is quite cool, so I have had to put on a shirt.
Last night I was laying in bed reading the very exciting climax part of Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King when a massive thunderstorm showed up here in Edmonton. For those who have not read the book I will not spoil it for you, but suffice to say that when a certain event occurs on Mount Doom which alters the course of destiny for all of Middle Earth, Tolkien describes the earth as convulsing and the mountains being shaken. At that very moment there were several incredibly loud and sustained thunderclaps here which shook the room and rattled the windows carrying me right to the foot of Mount Doom and it was so cool. It was like reading in surround sound. And speaking of natural phenomonon, the other evening as I was driving Nikki home from a soccer game, I noticed the sun was creating an absolutely gorgeaous spectacle in the sky. It was just above the horizon with two bands of fluffy white clouds, one above and one below. The clouds were lit up all red and orange and there were these huge God rays beaming out in all directions. I dashed home and grabbed my camera but by the time I got to a position where I could see this unobstructed, the sun had gone down and the effect was dissipating. I took some shots anyhow to see if anything would work out but they were quite disappointing. This is about the best I got: 
If you're like me and you see somthing that you don't understand, it bugs you until you can find out how it works. Well. here's a sight that should be in your favourites or even a button on your toolbar if you're always wondering how stuff works. It's called How Stuff Works and it's the coolest sight for us curious minds. I just happened to find the site yesterday when I was trying to find some info on internal hub gears for bicycles (cause you need to know these things) and after browsing for a while I knew how digital cameras worked and how 3D glasses work. It's a really cool site. I've been getting out on the bike finally and am quite enjoying it although it tends to be a bit sore down below with the hard seat and all so I havn't been riding too far. Dianne is on holidays next week so we are going to try and make a day trip and ride down to the river valley and check out the trails down there. Should be fun. Monday, July 21, 2003
It was a gorgeous weekend here in Edmonton and we took advantage of the weather to enjoy some outdoor fun. Diannne's sister & hubby were in town for a visit so on Saturday after a nice liesurly brunch out on the patio we took them to see Midsummer Night's Dream, the play we had seen on Wednesday night. They loved it and Dianne and I found it was better the second time around, mainly because we had better seats and so could hear and see what was going on better. Also we didn't have rain pelting us in the back of the head. Following that we went out for a birthday celebration meal. Dianne had been craving a Dairy Queen treat all day so we accomodated her by heading to DQ for dessert. We finished off the evening with a movie before hitting the sack quite late. Then on Sunday, Dianne and I actually got out on the bikes and tested the newly paved bike track near our house. I'm hoping to get out and do a little more riding this week although there is still a little soreness when I ride so I will have to take it easy.
I've been checking out a new search engine lately called GuruNet which is actually kind of cool. It allows you to do a search of any word in any document you are working with in Windows by Alt clicking on the word. It pops up a definition box with all kinds of other information and links to other websites having to do with that topic. It seems to sort out all the worthwhile stuff from all the chaffe. It's available at www.gurunet.com. Unfortunately it's only free for a limited time and then you have to upgrade it for full functionality. Another search tool which puts an entirely different spin on search results is KartOO which displays the results in a graphical format that is a bit confusing at first but is definately interesting. It takes a bit of getting used to. Thursday, July 17, 2003
With all the wacky weather this week it was a gamble as to which night to go to the park for the Shakespear festival. We took the plunge last night for A Midsummer Night's Dream even though the skies had darkened, the wind was howling and thunder and lightining where everywhere. But we could see blue sky to the west as we headeed for the river valley. The play started at 8:00 just as this massive cloud burst happened right over the amphitheatre. Even though we were under the canopy the wind was blowing the rain right on us, but we perservered and before the intermission all had stopped and the sun was shining again. By the way, the play was excellent as usual. We always enjoy the Free Will Players no matter what play they do. Dianne was not in the mood for Henry V so I guess we won't be going to that. She's a hollywood ending kinda gal. Likes the the fluffy comedies and not the downer tragedies.
Things have been humming along nicely for me although I have fallen into a bit of a routine that involves getting up late, watching TV, reading and napping a lot. I don't know if this is healthy, maybe I should get outside more. I did promise myself that I would go for walks to get some excercise so I guess I will have to force myself to do that. Tomorrow... Monday, July 14, 2003
In the week since my last posting we have had some really decent summer weather, much more to my liking. It's been warm and sunny most days with the occasional thundershower in the late evening to cool things down. We managed to get a fair bit of yard work done, Dianne planted some flowers in the back and we cleaned out all the junk beside and behind the garage, mostly old construction material from the renovations. Yesterday we took a leisurely excursion out to the dump to get rid of it all.
It has now been a month since my surgery and I think all is going well. I'm sure I could be back at work anytime as work is not real strenuous, but I will endeavor to enjoy the few weeks off that remain. It's been really great to have had this opportunity to have an extended holiday. I've been playing a bit of the CSI game, and although it does not hold a candle to the Myst/Riven series, it's still pretty interesting and gives you some puzzles to work out, although they do kind of lead you by the hand. They have used the voice talents of the actual TV cast but the CG rendition of the characters looks nothing like the real thing, so you have to stretch your imagination a bit. I've been getting a chuckle about all the flak George Dubyas been geting over this apparant lack of WOMD in Iraq. Gee, do ya think maybe we shoulda just left Saddam alone? Hats off to Vancouver for scoring the 2010 Olympics. That should hopefully keep the gears grinding at the CBC for a while. I'm about halfway through Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers at the moment and as I read it I'm itching to get my hands on the DVD for the movie, which of course won't be out till the fall (at least the extended version). Although the book is vastly superior, I long to see those incredible battle scenes in the movie and some of the other visual popcorn that brings the book to life. We often speculate on how much fun it will be to spend a couple of cold days in January 2005 and just have a LOTR marathon with all three flicks on disk, along with all the special features. If that doesn't put hair on your feet and point your ears, I don't know what will. Tuesday, July 08, 2003
I am sure that it is more than just coincidence that there are ads at the top of this web page for baby diapers and incontinence devices. Once again the sinister consumerism monster has laid it's ugly paw on even my humble and sincere ramblings in an attempt to shove it's advertising drivel down our throats. Why, if I wasn't so cheap I'd upgrade to Blogger Pro and get rid of that offensive blight!
Our whirlwind road trip to Saskatchewan over the weekend went off without a hitch. We had a great time at our neice Laurie's wedding and saw a lot of family members who also managed to make the trip. The drive there and back was quite long, 14 hours going and 12 coming back as we had to stop at Eagle's Nest Ranch in the Cypress Hills to pick Sandi up and then drop her off on the way back. It was a lot of driving for a one day visit but we enjoyed the scenic route through Drumheller, a nice change from the traffic clogged #2 through Calgary. We took lots of pictures, some of which are now available through a new link on the left called Photos July 2003 which also has some other goodies from the past little while. I did fairly well driving there and back and although I got quite tired I was able to do a fair amount of driving with Chris, Sandi and Dianne taking over the wheel at various times. Sandi did her first stint at highway driving and drove all the way from the Saskatchewan border to Sedley, a good 3.5 hour stretch. Things went well for me as far as spending long hours in the car in my condition and we only had to make pit stops a couple of times. These Depends garments are quite the technological marvel for what they are and are definately a help. Not only that, they are comfortable and very discreet, fitting quite snugly as I'm sure you will agree if you check this out.
The only down side to the weekend was the weather. It was quite hot and sunny in Sedley for Saturday, but we had to drive home Sunday against a mean, blustery wind and dark, threatening clouds that occasionally let go some moisture of their own. The temperatures have not been above 20 since and once again I am lamenting the fact that this is July not October and where are those long, hot summer days that I remember from my youth? I picked up the CSI: Crime Scene Investigaton game for PC the other day as I am a big CSI fan so I thought I'd check it out. I haven't had a chance to have a go at it yet as I have been busy doing other stuff, but it looks like it will be good fun. And of course I can get a CSI fix every night now as Showcase Action is running it 7 nights a week. Forensic goodness! We are hoping to make it to Edmonton's annual Shakespeare festival that is on now and has become a favourite tradition of ours. This year they are doing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry V, so I hope we get a couple of decent evenings to take that in. For anyone in the Edmonton area you can check it out here. Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Isn't that amazing. It works quite nicely. It will be interesting to see if I can now find some use for this little gem. Stay tuned.
I am just trying out this new Google toolbar with the Blogger button. Let's see how it works. I am presently viewing a page calledDinosaurs - What is a Dinosaur?- Enchanted Learning Softwareand if you wanted to check out an interesting tidbit I found on this page you would just hit the link. It's that simple. Let's see how it works, shall we?
I spent a fair amount of time today wrestling the dreaded adware to the ground. Seems I inadvertantly downloaded some of the malicious stuff which immediately took up residence on my system and started to do it's nasty business. I kept gettiing messages from my internet security program that all these different programs were trying to access the net. I was also getting this annoying page of links to commercial sites every time I did a search in any search engine. Finally I downloaded an updated version of Ad Aware which was able to eradicate the offending programs. I'ts amazing to me how devious people are just to try and get you to buy things from them. Between this adware, popups and spam in the email, the internet is slowly starting to look like a cheap apartment building with flyers and ads strewn about the lobby. At least we don't get ads for pornography in our mailboxes.
Hope everyone enjoyed the Canada Day holiday and drank a little toast to the old gal on her (let me just whip out my calculator here) 136th birthday. Had a busy day yesterday so I was a little too bushed to take in the fireworks. I just saw a thing on Tech TV today about a new tool bar for Google that you can download and it allows you to instantly post a link to any page you are visiting in Blogger, so I will have to check that out. It also has an anti popup feature which may be helpful. (see the above adware rant) We will be away for the weekend in Saskatchewan for the wedding, but stay tuned for a report on Monday on what it's like to take a 12 hour road trip with no bladder control. Monday, June 30, 2003
Caught a little too much sun yesterday as we sat in the back yard enjoying the glorius weather here in Edmonton, which continues today and hopefully for the rest of the week. And as I sat there reading Lord Of The Rings on my new chaise lounger I couldn't help think how great this was to have a couple of months off and be ordered to do nothing but relax and take it easy. The guilt swept over me for all of two seconds and I then went back to my reading. But I am truely grateful that my recovery seems to be progressing so quickly and with having a clean bill of health after the surgery I can really enjoy the time off without having to worry about further treatments. As I mentioned in a previous post, we are planning to head to Saskatchewan this weekend for my niece's wedding. Chris, Nikki and I are going to leave Friday morning and take a liesurely drive down to the Cypress Hills via Drumheller to pick Sandi up from Eagle's Nest Ranch and then proceed to Regina from there. Dianne, Angela and Lee are going to leave Friday afternoon after work, stopping in Saskatoon overnight to meet us in Sedley on Saturday. Then, after the wedding, we will all head back on Sunday making it a real whirlwind tour as some people have to be back at work on Monday. I will be taking the camera, of course, so I hope to have a few shots up on the site early next week.
I have put a link to Loni Well's website to the left for anyone interested in hearing her story. She is the daughter of some friends of ours who is facing some serious health problems and needs an immediate kidney transplant. There was an article about her in the Edmonton Journal last Saturday which included a picture of our Sandi and there has also been other articles on TV as well as in print. I've reproduced the article here.Please take some time to check out the site and add your prayers to the rest of us for Loni's recovery. Saturday, June 28, 2003
Just trying out this link button. Here is a link to the IHS Orchestra page where there is some info on the recent BBC project done in London last month. Check it out.
Well here we are at the July long weekend for 2003, and what a weekend it's shaping up to be. The sun is out and it's fairly warm and even the wind is quite moderate. So hopefully it will remain this way for the next few days. I think this is the first time in a lot of years that I have had the whole long weekend off and with Dianne not having to be back to work till Wednesday it almost seems like a holiday. What shall we do?
I am feeling better with each passing day and have been even doing a few things I shouldn't . I got into trouble yesterday when Dianne came home and found me fixing the lawnmower. She got real upset when I started lifting heavy boxes of a shelf and so I was given a spanking and sent to my room. Well, it needed to be fixed, the lawn is a mess. So today I helped Dianne clean up the yard by doing the edge trimming after she had mowed the grass. It did feel good to get outside. This afternoon we are thinking of heading downtown to catch a little Jazz City action. There is this new button on the tool bar that says link. I guess it's part of the new Blogger front end that allows you to add a link within your post without having to remember the messy HTML code that you had to put in before. I will have to give it a try. Thursday, June 26, 2003
Blogger was down all yesterday while they migrated the page to a new interface program which is supposed to be easier and more stable. We'll see about that. Anyway I was unable to report on my first day being untethered. The catheter came out in the morning yesterday and I immediately felt 100% better. The increased mobility is marvelous. I am moving around quite a bit faster now even though there is still some slight pain. Hopefully now I can get out and do some walking to get the energy level back up. Dealing with the incontinence problem has been interesting. We are experimenting with different types of pads and diapers which in a bizarre sort of way is fascinating as it's amazing what these things will soak up for the size they are. I am finding that I already have a certain amount of control and I'm hoping that it won't take long before everything is back to "normal".
Sandi is now back at Eagles Nest Ranch in the Cypress hils for the summer, so it will be a little bit quieter around the house, but I'm sure Nikki will make up for that. She just finished writing her final exams and is already having all night parties with her friends. We are totally miffed at the Edmonton Jazz City this year as they are not having the same free concerts in the square downtown that we have come to enjoy through the years. The one year that I am not working through Jazz City and there's nothing to see. I'd love to be able to afford to pay for some of the big name concerts on the main stages but that gets a little out of reach. So now I think I'll put on my hat and goggles and go for a walk in the wind. Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Test
I've spent the last couple of days slaving over the last two months of bank statements to get the books up to date and still have a lot to go. All this to tell me how much we are in the hole??
Tomorrow I go in to get the "biffy buddy" removed. It will be nice to have freedom finally from the assorted plumbing that has been attached to me for the last week and a half. The pampers are piled up on the dresser ready to go and I'm looking for a large sized bib and soother to complete the ensemble. I've been getting around the house pretty good lately without too much pain and hopefully should be able to get back behind the wheel of the car soon. We are looking forward to a trip to Saskatchewan for a wedding in early July so I am just wondering how a long trip like that will be for me. Hopefully we can split it up over a couple of days. Well, the sun dared to come out today, of course everyone's at work, but it's still pretty chilly so I don't think I'll venture out to the lounger just yet. I'll maybe wait until the icicles have had a chance to melt off. Sunday, June 22, 2003
What is it with living in Edmonton that saya we have to put up with crappy weather? After one or two relatively hot days last week, we have been plunged under the shadow of cloudy, rainy skies with cool temperatures and lots of wind. I know, I'm complaining about the weather again, but just once I would like to go through the seasons of the year and not have to have a blanket on the bed for each one of them. July, my favourite summer month, is just around the corner. Let's hope we have a chance to get out of doors during it.
This morning I ventured off the property for the first time since coming home with a trek to church. It was good to see lots of friends who have been praying for me and to rejoice with them in the good news of my surgery. Tomorrow I have sort of set aside as the day I get caught up on my banking bookwork as I have let it slide for a couple of months. I do not look forward to this as I am sure we are greatly overdrawn with all the reno expenses and after just paying our yearly property tax portion to Ceasar Smith, the coffers are looking a tad empty. Perhaps the sun will shine tomorrow and give me excuses to take long breaks to enjoy it. Friday, June 20, 2003
I have a couple of good reports to pass on to the faithful Chronicle readers. #1. Regularity Rules! The plumbing seems to be working again! Nuff' said about that as #2 is way more important. #2. Moments ago our family doctor called to see how I was doing and said that she had received a copy of the pathology report of the biopsies taken during my surgery. There is no sign of any cancer outside the capsule of the prostate! This is the news we have been waiting for and I can assure you there are some moist eyeballs in the Chronicle household tonight. I will be seeing the urologist on Wednesday and expect to get confirmation on this at that time. We will have to follow up with monthly PSA tests for a while to make sure everything remains clear but in the meantime we are all rejoicing. Thursday, June 19, 2003
It amazes me what a person will go through by way of image degradation in the name of comfort. In order to be comfortable with my present body modifaction and assorted attachments, I have taken to wearing extra large baggy shorts and ugly plaid lounging pants. Dianne has been combing the racks at Zellers for this stuff which the normal self appreciating fellow would not be caught dead in. I look forward to making a run to the Salvation Army drop off box with a large garbage bag in the near future.
I have delightfully plunged back into the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, something I had promised myself while I have some time on my hands. Inasmuch as my hat goes off to Peter Jackson for a superb interpretation of the story, the movies do not hold a candle to the books. While I am reading I am constantly reminded of the brilliant pictorial way Tolkien paints his way through the adventures and even on the sixth or seventh reading (I can't remember which) I'm continually blown away at how fresh and richly detailed the story is. Of course I'll probably drag out the Fellowship of the Ring DVD along the way for a little dessert. My ambulatory ability seems to be improving with each passing day and now I am able to climb the basement stairs with ease, albiet without much speed, and getting around the house and in and out of bed does not pose much of a problem at least not one where I require someone to spot me. There is one niggly little issue I am having, however. Since having a fairly good movement after coming home Tuesday, there hasn't been much activity in the plumbing department since and I'm a tad concerned. I'm starting to eat a little more so there should be something. I'm taking Telenol 3's which have a tendency to cause constipation so I'm trying to drink lots of fluids to keep the system lubricated, but so far I have spent lots of time in the throne room with not much to show for it. I was contemplating posting a few shots of my incision but in the interests of human decency I thought better of it. Instead I'll show you some of the marvelous flower arrangements and gift baskets that have come our way with much appreciation.  .Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Sorry about that test post, I was having more trouble with blogger.
This morning I awoke and was feeling much better. I spent a very restful day just reading, listening to music and going for walks around the house. The only problem I have now is not being able to "fix" things as I make my rounds and getting used to hauling my "biffy buddy" along wherever I go. Fortunately the catheter will be coming out next Wednesday but that will open up a new can of worms in the form of bladder control issues. I never thought I would pay so much attention to a "Depends" commercial. On Wednesday we hope we will get the results of the pathology report on whether the cancer had spread beyond the prostrate. The doctor removed some lymph nodes and the indication was that they were clear, which is a good sign. He is being cautiously optomistic. The report next week will indicate whether further treatment is required. But for now my main goal is to recover from the surgery and get back on my feet.
Testing
This is my second attempt at this posting tonight as the first one got eaten by Blogger, so I hope I remember what I wrote. Anyway, I am now back home after my stay in the hospital and I thought I'd better dust off the keyboard and get the Chronicle back online.
First of all I would just like to extend a deep heartfelt thank you to all who sent the many calls, cards, gifts, flowers and well wishes for my speedy recovery. It really helped keep my spirit up at the level it needed to be to go through this. For those who were not kept up to speed by Dianne's e-mail bulletins here is a brief review: I went into the hospital on Friday for the removal of the prostate and after a two hour operation which I was told went very well, I was back in my room high on morphine. Things went pretty smoothly for the next couple of days as I attempted to get my sea legs. I was finally able to get out of bed and sit for a while and was even able to take a liesurely stroll to the door. They removed the morphine drip and I kind of nose dived for a while until we got the pain under control with the Tylenol 3's. The next big challenge was getting my bowels working and once that happened there was great rejoicing. I progressed well and was able to take long walks down the hall. They let me out on good behaviour on Tuesday morning after removing the railroad track from the front of my stomach. The trip home was tiring after having to walk to the car and after driving home I took a much needed shower which really wiped me out. I then spent the rest of the afternoon in bed and was able to get up for the evening and even entertain some visitors before heading to bed for a hopefully restful sleep. Saturday, June 07, 2003
The bedroom is finished, the new furniture is in place and once again the world is revolving in greased grooves. We are just waiting for the dresser mirror and one of the night tables, which are on back order, to be delivered and then I will take a few photos and post them here. We are also looking into getting some snazzy new form of window covering instead of the old time worn venetians. We are very pleased with the results and are glad we are finally finished. However, it still feels like we are staying in a bed and breakfast when waking up every morning to the new surroundings.
I am now a week away from surgery and last week went for the pre admission briefing to get the lowdown on what to expect. It appears I have to stop eating for about four days. Won't that be fun! Nonetheless, it will be good to get it all over with and then get home to rest up. I have two midnight shifts to pull starting tomorrow night and then I am done at work for a couple of months. Angela had some wisdom teeth pulled last week and spent the next couple of days in bed recovering. She resembled a huge squirrel with a winter's supply of nuts in her cheeks while the swelling subsided. I am hoping within the nest few weeks to get some more picture galleries up on the site. With the new camera, it is a breeze to shoot and post and most people enjoy a good picture of something rather than me blathering on trying to describe it. Sunday, June 01, 2003
As you may know from reading this page, we have been up to our eyballs in renovations for the past couple of weeks. The bedroom is all but done with just a few minor touch ups here and there. The piece de resistance will be arriving on Wednesday in the form of a brand new bedroom suite that has been 25 years in the waiting. After ditching our trusty old waterbed last year we have been pondering what to get to replace it. We got a new mattress and now we will have a super new bed with matching dresser, mirror, chest and two night stands. Not that I'm all that fussy about where I lay my sleepy head, but my heart is starting to go pitter pat with anticipation.
We are also going to get our yard work completed professionally for a reasonable price. However, work won't start until sometime in August so the yard will continue to look like ground zero and the neighbours will think...well, to heck with what the neighbours think. With two weeks and counting to surgery day, you can look forward to some meaningful and thought provoking posts on this site as I will have all the time in the world to come up with all kinds of earth shattering revelations, or I could just tell you every day how totally bored I am. Stay tuned. For an absolutely incredible example of patience streched to the limit check out "cog." This is a two minute commercial for Honda that took four days and 606 takes to get right. And no, there is no trick photography or computer generated animation here. What you see actually happened. And read some of the articles to find out how this was done. Monday, May 26, 2003
We finally have our bedroom renovation complete after a long week of hard work. A concerted effort over the weekend and some help from friends and family saw the installation of a new laminate floor, baseboards and casings, new closet doors and a new ceiling fan. All that's left is the touch ups on the piant work and the rehanging of the doors and the room will be ready for the new bed that we are hoping to get shortly. Of course with all this work on the bedroom my yard renovation has been put on hold but we are hopefully going to get a professional landscaper in to complete the job if it's not too expensive. Here's a few pix of the finished room:
Friday, May 23, 2003
After a prolonged absence I felt it was time for a quick update. We have been massively busy for the last couple of weeks with some major projects. At first I was anxious to get outside and start work on "The Great Front Yard Restoration", but with blizzards on both weekends I had off at the beginning of May, my hopes were slightly dashed. I was finally able to start some digging last week and got a start on the retaining wall I want to build around our massive fir tree. Then, Dianne announced that she wanted to paint the master bedroom so that I would have a pleasant environment to recoup from surgery in. Just a splash of paint , she said. But I knew better and sure enough the "splash of paint" project turned into the "project from hell". After removing the remaining wallpaper from the walls, we discovered that there was some water damage around the windows, so that had to be repaired. In the process we replaced half a wall of drywall, tore up the carpeting, removed sections of the subfloor, treated the flooring for mold, ripped off all the baseboards and casings and decided that we had to replace every window in the house. So now I am just finishing off the painting and will be screwing down the subfloor in preparation for the installation of a new laminate floor tommorrow. We are putting in all new baseboards and casing which all have to be painted yet. We then have a new closet door and ceiling fan to install and then it will be done. We are also contemplating getting a brand new bed which Dianne has been drooling over for several weeks since Sandi bought one for herself. Here's a couple of pictures of the work in progress:
 I'll post a couple of pictures of the finished product. Please check out this website of the daughter of some friends of ours. She is a young 19 year old woman who is in desparate need of a kidney transplant. Please check out the site and send her a message to encourage her. Her Mom tells me that since the site went live on Tuesday May 20 she has had over 32,000 hits from all over the world. In about three weeks I will be heading to the hospital for my surgery. As this is going to slow me down considerably I should have lots of time on my hands to ponder the universe and as such I hope to be a little more prolific in my postings. I will be attempting to do some writing at this time also and catching up on some reading. I haven't waded through Lord of the Rings for some time. So look forward to a little more output on this site in the form of choice gems of writing and maybe some inspired photography. Tuesday, May 06, 2003
So what is with this crazy country. It's the 5th of May and we are still up to our buttocks in snow. I don't think even the farmers want this much moisture especially if you can't get the tractor through the snowbank to seed.
Sandi went and saw X-Men 2 today and says that it rocks, I haven't heard any reviews yet so I don't have a judgement. I'm not that big on comic book based movies anyway (I was totally bummed out with Spiderman) so I guess I'll have to wait till the DVD is out to see it or catch it at work. Nice job if you can get it. Sunday, May 04, 2003
Yikes! I havn't posted anything to the site for almost a month. Bad kitty!! Well I guess an update is in order. We are into our third or fourth winter for this year at the moment. Here it is beginning of May, we're itching to get out and work on the yard, and what's this?!! they've closed highway 2 to Calgary because of a blizzard?! As I speak, the snowflakes are still coming down.
For any of my faithful readers (all two of you) who aren't in the know, it's been a pretty rough last two weeks in the 'ol Hilton house. Two weeks ago I ended up in the hospital for four days as a result of an infection that hit me like a Mac truck. The infection was caused by a biopsy I had on my prostate to check for possible malignancy. As I was recovering from the infection we got word that the tests were positive for cancer of the prostate. So, now I am booked for surgery on June 13 to get that puppy taken out, which means my plans to finish my front yard landscape project have gone up in smoke, unless I can recruit some naive lackies to come and do some grunt labor for me. Having three daughters with lots of friends helps. In the meantime, Dianne has me on all kinds of evil tasting concoctions and vitamins and supplements to try and healthen me up. Have you ever noticed that the things that are good for you taste vile, whereas the stuff that is delicious will kill you? We have been overwhelmed with people calling and approaching us to offer their well wishes and prayers for us for which I am very grateful. We are expecting a miracle! Anyway I have about a month in which to get a major component of my front yard installed so if it would just stop snowing long enough...... A couple of weeks ago we were at a friend's daughter's wedding and I had a chance to field test the new digitial camera. I was quite impressed with the quality of the images and apart from a few problems in getting used to the operation, the unit works very well. Here is a photo of Dianne and I taken at the wedding. The image has beeen resized smaller to accomodate downloading so it looks a little grainy  Friday, April 11, 2003
So as you can see I got the image thing working after a bit of experimenting and a false start (sorry about the double entry). Anyway it looks like it works so expect to see some jazzier post soon.
Spent some time the other morning watching the symbolic "toppling" of the regime in Baghdad and couldn't help thinking about how monumental the task will be to bring order and "democracy" to this forlorn country. I'm not even sure these people know what democracy is what with half the population never knowing anything other than the Saddam regime in their lives. So needless to say they face the future with guarded optimism not knowing what to expect. I only hope Bush follows through with his promises and helps them instead of rushing of to "save" another beleagered Arab country.
We are now the owners of a HP Photosmart 850 digital camera which I am quite pleased with so far. The images are impressive and it has enough bells and whistles to hopefully satisfy my photographic needs. I am posting an image of Chester our cat here to illustrate the fine quality pictures and to test whether I can post pictures inline on this page. If it works out, there will probably be a lot more pictures here as momentous occasions occur. 
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