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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.
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